What Went Wrong and Where Do I Go From Here? Part I

So what went wrong and where do I go from here? Those are the questions I asked myself as I decided to scrap my plan for hill bursts and jogged the remainder of my run last Tuesday. Since getting back up to speed after some calf problems in April, I had put together some of the best training I’d done since 2007, a full five years ago. I also seemed to be responding to it fairly well, at least I thought, but in the end I think I had my blinders on and was missing a lot of signs and certainly not seeing the big picture.

Digging myself a hole was really just the straw that broke the camel’s back. For the last several weeks, I’d been looking at my training and considering what changes I could make. Why? Because I wasn’t getting the results I felt like I should have been, nor had I gotten those results since I started back running in January of 2011. I’ve lost a little time here and there, but I’ve actually been fairly healthy over the last 18+ months and I’ve logged some good mileage and a few decent workouts over that time period. I know I’m not as young as I once was and that’s certainly a factor. I also know that when you’re not a spring chicken anymore and you miss as much time as I did from November of 2009 to January of 2011, it’s going to take a while to get fit again and you have to stick to a plan and allow time for your body to adapt. However, even taking those things into consideration, I just didn’t feel like I was progressing as I should be and I felt like I’d been patient enough, had  given things a chance to work, and it just wasn’t happening.

In the past, if I’d had a block of training like I’ve had over the last 10 weeks, I would have been rolling sub-16 5k’s and starting to think about taking shots at some of my PRs a few weeks down the road. This time, however, I just seemed to be stalled out. For example, I ran 17:16 at the MANNAthon 5k just a few weeks after resuming training post some time where I was hampered with my calf. The MANNAthon course isn’t exactly what I would call fast, so I thought that was a pretty good sign off limited training and thought I’d be well under 17 with a few more weeks of good work. Well, I got that few weeks of training and then some, but no sub-17. Granted most of the courses I raced were not easy, but I took that into consideration and still didn’t run up to expectations.

I think the race that told me the most and the point where I really started thinking that changes needed to be made was the John Henry Days Four Miler in mid-July. Again, not the easiest course in the world, but I had run the race twice before and gone 21:18 in 2007 and 21:28 in 2009, so not all that long ago and neither time in what I would call fantastic shape. I backed off a little the week of the race, caught a decent morning weather wise, and really felt like I should have been able to go under 22 min, maybe even 21:45 range. I got out fairly well through the mile and felt ok, but thereafter I started to feel worse and worse and just couldn’t maintain. I experienced the same thing I’ve experienced in both races and workouts for the past year or more. There just seems to be a governor on my body that’s set somewhere around 5:30-5:40 pace. Anything under that and I just struggle. When you’ve run half marathons faster than that and your 5k PR is 4:56 pace, that gets pretty frustrating fast.

Now, there are other factors at play that could certainly mean it’s not time to hit the panic button and/or just throw in the towel and quit altogether, and that’s why I’m not doing either. Certainly the weather we’ve had this summer has been a challenge. It’s tough to do workouts that work on your 5k fitness when the heat index is over 100 degrees. Such days not only make it hard just to get out and log the miles, but they make what miles you are able to do take a lot more out of your body than they would on a cool, dry day. I fully believe that none of us will know exactly where we are fitness wise until fall comes and we get a chance to race in better conditions.

Moving to something more recent, I’m sure some of what had me worn down was simply life outside of running. There were several weekends and even evenings where I did a lot of hard, manual labor around my house and on my land. Also, things like getting up prior to 5:00AM and traveling to races the past couple weekends don’t help, especially when you’re training and working hard.

Still, weather and other factors taken into consideration, I know my body pretty well at this point in life, and I know when something is off and/or when something isn’t working. Also, over the last year and a half, I’ve trained in all sorts of conditions and been both tired and well-rested, and the end result has pretty much been the same. Again, this is why I know changes have to be made, like that fact or not.

Ok, this explanation of what’s gotten me to where I am right now has gotten kind of long, so I’m going to wrap it up and call this Part I. I’ll write up Part II in the next couple of days and get that posted then. That’s where I’ll discuss specific changes I’m hoping to make and my reasoning behind them. Why am I bothering posting this stuff? Well, not because I think anyone really cares, but it’s good for me to type it all out just to organize my thoughts and it gives me something to look back on down the road. It also gives me some accountability, and who knows, maybe it will even help someone who reads it not make the same mistakes I have and/or correct ones they’ve already made. Anyway, if you do happen to care, stay tuned for Part II.