Training Summary: 7/9 - 7/15

Mon: 7 miles
Tue: 8 miles, including drills and hill bursts
Wed: 9.5 miles, including 12X200m
Thu: 6.5 miles
Fri: 5 miles
Sat: 11 miles, including 4-mile race in 22:11
Sun: 15.5 miles
Total: 62.5 miles

This was a planned down week, and looking back, I probably should have backed off a bit more than I actually did. The general idea for a down week is around a 20% reduction in volume, and since my weekly mileage has been in the upper 60’s lately, a total of around 55 miles would have probably been more appropriate. A week of reduced volume every 3-5 weeks is something I want to make a staple of my training program going forward as I feel it will help with two things. First, I think it will help me stay healthy and also prevent overtraining, and second, I think it will allow my body to absorb the training I’m doing better than if I never backed off, which will hopefully lead to faster gains in fitness.

Anyway, the week itself went fairly well. I started it out pretty tired from the past three weeks of solid training, but by Friday my legs were starting to come around, which is a good sign that I haven’t been overdoing it too much over the past several weeks. Tuesday and Wednesday were both geared towards neuromuscular facilitation via hill bursts the first day and repeat 200’s on the track the next. I think this is something I’ve been lacking, and the Wednesday workout in particular highlighted this fact. The goal for that workout was to run the 200’s at 5k pace minus two seconds with a 200 jog in between. I picked 80 seconds per quarter as 5k pace (which might be a little faster than I can actually go), meaning the goal for the 200’s was 38. They all turned out faster, with the average being 36, and the last two at 35 and 33. What was telling, however, was the fact that from a cardio standpoint it was an easy workout. My legs, on the other hand, got pretty fatigued in the second half and really didn’t want to turn over like I needed them to. That’s exactly the point of this sort of workout and also exactly why I feel like I need more of this sort of work.

After a couple of easy days on Thursday and Friday, I headed over to WV for a four mile road race Saturday morning. I was fortunate enough to get the overall win, but I was a bit disappointed with my time of 22:11. More to come in a recap in the next day or two. I finished the week off with a long run Sunday morning in Fincastle. This was a rough one. Since I had to get up before 5:00AM Saturday morning, I slept in a bit and didn’t get started until 8:15AM. The dew point was 71 when I left the house, and by the time I got done, the temperature was already over 80. As a result, my shorts and even my shoes were both soaked by the seven mile mark. When your shoes are squishy and you’re not even halfway done with your run, you know it’s going to be miserable, and it certainly was. I wanted to keep the pace fairly tame on this run (around 7-flat) and did so for the first half, but in the second half I just wanted to finish it, so I wound up running faster than I should have considering the conditions and coming off a race the day before. I ended up averaging 6:37/mile from mile 8 on, with mile 15 in 6:22, and I was pretty well toast by the end. My left hamstring was sore after too, so hopefully that won’t turn into an issue.

The goal is to get back on it this week, as it’s down to just 7 weeks to go to CDR. Looks like it’s going to be a tough week though in terms of the heat/humidity. It’s just plain hard to train with any real quality this time of year. Once you get acclimated, you can get out there and do some work, but really getting after it can be difficult at best and downright dangerous at worst. That said, I’ll play the week by ear and let both the conditions and the way my body is feeling dictate the specifics. Have a great week, all!