Mon: 7.5 miles
Tue: 9 miles, including strides
Wed: 3.5 miles (FAIL!)
Thu: 5 miles
Fri: 4 miles
Sat: 13 miles, including Bank of Fincastle 10k in 37:00 for 1st overall
Sun: 13 miles
Total: 55 miles
Ok, forget summarizing the almost non-existent training this week, I’m just gonna cut straight to the chase. This wasn’t a great week by any means. In fact, the win in the race on Saturday was about the only bright spot, and even that was hard to get excited about considering I’ve run over three and a half minutes faster on that course. I could find lots of reasons/excuses for having an off week, but honestly, I’m just not sure what my deal is right now. I did run a decent amount of mileage with a couple solid workouts last week while getting less rest than usual, so I’m sure that and traveling to and from the beach took something out of me. I also probably did a little too much the three days after getting back home, and I stayed very busy all week playing catch-up at work, so I could blame all that for how I felt.
The problem is, this week wasn’t an isolated event. It was more like a really bad spot in the midst of an extended period of not feeling great. While headed back to my car in what was basically a meltdown on Wednesday, I gave serious consideration to scheduling a doctor’s appointment to get some bloodwork and other tests done, and I still haven’t ruled out that course of action. When you’ve been at this as long as I have, you know your body pretty well, and something just isn’t right. I’ve taken steps to be smarter in my training and I’ve slowed down my easy days considerably, yet I seem to be headed in the wrong direction. Workouts are a struggle and races are worse, and day in and day out, I just don’t seem to have it.
Anyway, I don’t want to turn this post into a gripe session or a pity party, so I’ll leave it at that. Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I don’t think that’s entirely it. I really think there’s more to it, whether it be dietary issues creating a deficiency of some sort, allergies pulling me down, or something else. I’m taking a look at everything right now and leaving all options open to try to figure out how to not only improve my performances but feel better while doing so. I love to run and I love to compete, but feeling run down all the time definitely takes a lot of the fun out of it, so I’ve got to figure some things out. In fact, that’s goal number one for the remainder of this year. The racing season only has a few weeks left, and I can’t make any significant improvement in my fitness in that amount of time, so while I still plan on racing a few more times before the year is over, my real objective is to figure out why I’ve struggled the majority of this year. That’s what I need to do to turn things around and have a better 2013 when I will make my entry into the Master’s Division (yikes!).
I’ll conclude with a big shout out to Matthew Wright for getting his first overall road race win in the Bank of Fincastle 5k this past Saturday. He ran a solid time of 18:16 on that difficult course in what was his first race in around 6 months. Coaching and training with those young’uns at Cave Spring HS has definitely paid off and I can see more race wins and some PRs in his near future!
3 comments:
Now that I'm out of the racing scene I'll play devil's advocate/armchair quarterback: So...please don't take offence, but....you're training seems well suited for longer races than 10K's. I think you have the ability to throw in a few sub 5 min miles during a progression run, or bust at least 2 sub 5's out on a track. I really believe you can do that. Just my two cents.
Steve, no offense taken. You're right, between helping Andrew train for marathons and just my natural inclination, my training is generally more suited for distances longer than what I wind of racing most of the time. My intention was to get into more of a speed phase this fall, but I just never felt it, mentally or physically. I do think that's what I need though, because if you wanna run fast, you gotta run fast. :-)
You need some days at 9-10 min pace. I'm not much younger than you and I train considerably slower than you do. My long run, and two other workouts, light speed, and a threshold run make my week up. I'm spending a lot of time at the 9 min pace yet can run a 4:34 mile and did 16:44 for 5k.
Nick Whited
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