Mon: 7 miles
Tue: 9 miles, including strides
Wed: 11 miles, including 3X10 min at tempo pace
Thu: 7 miles
Fri: 9.5 miles, including short fartlek
Sat: 6.5 miles
Sun: 18 miles, including 60 min at marathon pace effort
Total: 68 miles
This turned out to be a pretty good week and I’m hoping was the start of an uptick in my training. As I’ve mentioned previously, ever since a couple weeks prior to CDR, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a bit of a hole. I’ve just been more tired than I felt like I should have been and my legs have been tired and heavy for most every run. At first, I attributed it to the hot/humid weather, and that probably was a factor, but when it continued throughout September, I began to get concerned that there was something else at play. I was thinking maybe it was recovery from CDR, as I’ve heard that race can tend to beat you up like a marathon, but then it started to linger past the point where that seemed logical as well. I thought about diet, allergies, and other things, and had just about reached the point where I was considering taking a few days off to see if that would help. However, towards the end of this week, I finally began to see some improvement. I still have a ways to go and need the upward trend to continue, but at least I feel a little more optimistic now.
Looking at the specifics of the week, Wednesday was a solid workout consisting of 3X10 min intervals with 3 min recovery. About all I can say for that one is I completed it. I definitely didn’t run anywhere near as well as I should have, and when I finished was when I began to seriously consider taking some time off. I felt better than expected the next day, though, and Friday had a pretty good light workout that consisted of six sets of 60 sec on, 60 sec off, 30 sec on with 60 sec recovery between sets. That workout was really just intended to shake the legs out a bit while not doing too much damage before the big effort of the week on Sunday.
The Sunday run was 40 min of running followed by 60 min at marathon pace effort followed by another 20 in the way of a cooldown. Andrew and I had planned on running this on the train bed in Oriskany, but a last minute change of plans left us doing it in the hills of Botetourt on a course that wound up having almost 2,800’ of total elevation change. The goal was to run around 6:15 pace, but that was on flatter terrain. We adjusted the goal to 6:20-6:25, and I thought even that might be more than I could handle for an hour based on the way I’d been feeling. What ensued was a great confidence builder for us both, as we not only averaged slightly faster than the original goal of 6:15, but we got faster as we went. Furthermore, the effort felt under control and didn’t wipe me out afterward as I thought it might. I’m hoping that, plus the relatively quick recovery after the poor workout on Wednesday, were signs that I’m finally getting my legs back under me. Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen, but for now I’ll take it.
I’m hoping for a good week of training this week and looking to race on Saturday in what will be more of a workout than anything else. I feel like I have a decent level of fitness, and for once, I’ve felt pretty solid from an aches/pains standpoint for a while now, so if I can just get my energy level up and my legs fully under me, I think I can do some decent things before the year is over. September definitely wasn’t the month I was looking for, so I’d like to get October off to a good start and finish the fall strong!
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