Mon: 7 miles
Tue: Off
Wed: 8.5 miles
Thu: 10 miles, including light progression
Fri: 8.5 miles
Sat: 6 miles
Sun: 14 miles
Total: 54 miles
After three weeks in a row of building mileage, this was a scheduled down week. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but it was definitely needed and I think I accomplished the overall goal of backing down and letting my body catch up to the training I’ve been doing. Going forward this will be a basic strategy of my training. I’ll take 2-4 weeks up then have a down week where I reduce the volume significantly and the intensity at least a little. I’m hoping this not only keeps me healthy but also allows my body to better absorb the training I’m doing and therefore build fitness faster. It’s hard to make gains when you’re constantly tearing down and staying tired, so recovery weeks can definitely be beneficial.
Not much worthy of discussing in terms of particulars for this week since most everything I did was just getting out and running. I did do a light progression run on Thursday, but it was certainly nothing to get excited about. I had hoped to do a fartlek workout that night, but between the wind and cold and the way my legs were feeling, I decided it would have been pretty useless. As is, I at least got a little work in without overdoing myself, and that’s what’s most important at this point in time.
I’m not going to lie and say I’m right where I want to be heading into the New Year. I had hoped to be hitting some decent workouts by this point in time and be in position to run fairly well at the first Liberty University indoor track meet the last weekend in January. However, things have simply not come together like I wanted. There are various reasons, or some might say excuses, as to why, but suffice it to say I’m just not all that fit at the moment. Holiday activities took a little something out of me and left me on the tired side, and feasting on all the great food that’s been around didn’t help either.
The good news is I’m not in BAD shape right now; I’m just not quite where I had wanted to be. Additionally, I’ve made good progress lately with both my calf/shin and my achilles, two areas that have been chronic issues and limiters of performance for a long, long time. As a matter of fact, for the most part, I’m feeling as good as I have in a while. The only exception to that is my hip flexors seem to be fatiguing in just about every run right now. They don’t really hurt and they’re not sore or tight; they just get tired towards the latter stages of a run and therefore I don’t have much lift or power in my stride. I’m not sure if something’s not working properly that’s causing my hip flexors to have to do more work than they should, or perhaps things are actually working better now that I’ve addressed my calf and achilles issues and my hip flexors are now working like they should but need to catch up due to a long period of inactivity. Either way, I need to get it figured out fairly soon, especially as I look to start faster workouts, because it’s certainly limiting my stride and isn’t much fun either.
Ok, there’s the last week of 2012. It was one of my better years in the last several, but I hope 2013 will be even better, and I’ll be looking to get it off to a good start this coming week. Happy New Year, everyone!
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