Mon: 7.5 miles, drills after
Tue: 7 miles
Wed: 4 miles
Thu: 7 miles
Fri: 6 miles
Sat: 6.5 miles
Sun: 15 miles
Total: 53 miles
After my second weekend in a row of getting up prior to 5:00AM to travel to a race, and following up the second race with a really hilly 16 miler the next morning, I was pretty fried on Monday. I got through my evening run with no major issues but had planned on doing a few strides towards the end and decided to skip those based on how my legs were feeling. Nothing was really sore or hurting; I was just tired and dead-legged and figured the strides wouldn’t be worth much even if I could force myself through them. I did my drills afterward, as scheduled, and didn’t think much more of it.
Tuesday’s plan called for 6-7 miles of running followed by some hill bursts, so I set out over the River Loop in Salem to knock it out. It didn’t take even a mile for me to realize I didn’t have much in the way of energy and nothing in the way of legs, but I pressed on, hoping I would feel better as I went. By four miles, however, I finally threw in the towel, backed off the effort, and just ran/jogged it in from there, cutting the run at seven miles total. That was all I needed to tell me I’d crossed the line and was in need of some recovery.
Wednesday, I cut my run at 30 minutes, mainly because my primary goal for the remainder of the week was to get my legs back under me and my energy level up as quickly as possible. I didn’t feel too bad on Thursday and thought maybe I was on my way to a quick recovery, but Friday was another struggle and seemed to indicate the hole I’d dug for myself was bigger than I’d hoped. The weekend went well though (aside from having to do Sunday’s long run in a downpour), so hopefully I’ll be back to normal from this point forward.
Obviously this wasn’t the week I was looking for, but in the grand scheme of things, I think it may be the best thing that could have happened to me. Over the past year, my race performances haven’t been what I wanted or up to what I feel I’m still capable of running. As I’ve mentioned recently, that already had me thinking and starting to make some changes. However, I needed something like this to give me a final push towards not only taking a long, hard look at my training, but also doing what I know needs to be done and sticking with it long term rather than falling back into the same old habits or just adding more work on top of what I was already doing.
This certainly isn’t the first time this has happened, but I want to make it the last. Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is the definition of insanity. No matter how solid the reasoning may be or how good the intentions are, if you don’t get the results you’re seeking, you must re-evaluate and alter your approach, even if it means going against ideals that have been ingrained into you. I enjoy running and will always be a runner. However, my current goal in this sport is to run as fast as I’m capable of, therefore I must judge myself by how I perform in races. Training is simply a means to race fast, not the end goal, and that is probably the number one thing I must remind myself of going forward. I’d rather be embarrassed by my training log but proud of my races than vice versa.
I hope to put up a post in the next few days regarding the changes I want to make and my reasoning behind them. Some of the things I need to work on are issues I’ve struggled with ever since I first started running. Others are more recent and probably have to do with a combination of things, such as missing so much time due to injury in the 2008-2010 time frame and, like it or not, being older than I once was. Regardless, I have some good advice, a plan in place, and I’m excited about getting down to it and seeing what I can do with the rest of this year and beyond. Let the process of remaking a runner begin!
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