Training Summary: 6/18 - 6/24

Mon: 7 miles
Tue: 8.5 miles, including drills and strides
Wed: 11 miles, steady effort
Thu: 7.5 miles
Fri: 10 miles with a faster finish
Sat: 7 miles
Sun: 16.5 miles
Total: 67.5 miles

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve decided to turn my training focus over the next couple months towards preparing for the Charleston Distance Run (CDR) on September 1, and this week was a decent step towards that goal. While I know 5k/10k pace is my weakness and probably will continue to be for a while, I have to acknowledge the fact that attempting to hammer out VO2 Max oriented workouts in the sort of heat and humidity we experienced this past week (and are likely to continue to have to deal with throughout the summer) just isn’t productive. Sure you can put out the effort required for those sorts of workouts, but you won’t generate the same pace and will need a lot of extra effort just to run slower, so to me it’s better to save those for the fall and do something different in the meantime. This definitely doesn’t mean I’ll totally neglect faster work, it just means what gets emphasized will be a little different for a while then change again once the weather gets cooler. It also doesn’t mean I won’t be jumping in some shorter races along the way. I may not be doing 5k training and therefore might not race as fast as if I were, but those shorter races are still good opportunities to gauge fitness and work on specific systems.

Moving on, I did my usual drills and strides day on Tuesday. This will likely stay in my weekly rotation because I think working on form and turnover is valuable throughout the year regardless of what the primary focus of your training might be, even if it’s the marathon. Wednesday was a hilly, medium long run at a steady effort, and as I mentioned in a previous post, it was brutal. I don’t know what the heat index was that afternoon, but I know I was thoroughly overheated by the time I finished and the pace of the run definitely didn’t match the effort I was putting out. By Friday, the effects of the heat and humidity were starting to catch up to me and my legs were pretty well dead. I had thought about doing some longer strides or maybe a fartlek workout of some sort, but instead I just opted to squeeze the pace down towards the end. I got down to 6:06 for mile nine then ran the tenth mile just a little slower. Overall it was an ok run, and I was actually happy to get anything done that day as there were bad storms all around.

The week finished with a long run in Fincastle with Dave and Andrew. We did a two-loop course that was very hilly but allowed us to grab some fluid basically in the middle of the run, and I was thankful we did because even at that I was starting to get a little dry and overheated towards the end. The pace was solid throughout, especially considering the terrain, and we averaged 6:25 for the last 8 miles, with a few faster than that towards the end. It was definitely good CDR prep and just the sort of thing I need over the next few months in order to run a strong, hilly 15 miles come September.

I’m not totally sure how I’ll lay this week out. It appears we might get a little break from the weather in the middle of the week, so that might be a good time to throw in a workout of some sort. I’m also thinking about a 5k race on the weekend, but nothing is set in stone at this point. Whatever I do I’ll probably be on the tired side from staying up each night watching the Olympic Trials! Regardless, I’m starting to build a decent block of training since I started back in mid-April, so I just want to stay healthy, keep getting stronger, and keep rollin’!