Mon: 5 miles
Tue: 7 miles
Wed: 10 miles
Thu: 6.5 miles
Fri: 9.5 miles
Sat: 5 miles
Sun: 15 miles
Total: 58 miles
My goal for this week was to get back into my normal routine and also get my legs back under me so I can start “real” training again soon. I feel like I accomplished both those objectives for the most part. The run on Monday was my first in five days, but it felt more like my first in five weeks. Even though I hadn’t taken an extended period of time off, it sure seemed like it. I started out feeling great for the first couple minutes then felt progressively worse for the next couple of miles before finally starting to feel a little better towards the end. Tuesday I felt a little more like my normal self, but still felt a little out of sorts and out of shape. Wednesday was a hilly run and seemed much harder than what I thought it should have.
I was beginning to think I should have never backed off my training, but the second half of the week went much better. Thursday was a nice easy day and felt like just that. Friday I actually felt like I could have run a decent workout had I wanted to, but that wasn’t on the agenda. Instead, Andrew and I ran around Salem before they started their Christmas Parade. It was cool getting to run down the middle of a closed Main Street and also to see all the bands and floats lining up, but let me say this: traffic in Salem on the night of the Christmas Parade is nuts!
I finished the week off with an easy day on Saturday followed by a long run on Sunday. The long run wasn’t a whole lot of fun. Not only was I tired from jumping back into normal running, but I also spent the day before building fence, so I was pretty worn out from that as well. Additionally, I hadn’t done a long run in a couple of weeks and we decided to run the Lee’s Gap loop, which is hilly even by Fincastle standards. Furthermore, we decided to run it in the opposite direction of how we’ve always done it in the past, and that only served to make it more difficult. Needless to say, I was ready to be done from about the hour mark on, which doesn’t make for a pleasant experience in a long run.
Anyway, after this week, here’s my assessment of where I am with my training. I spent most of November just sort of treading water and actually ran a little less than I originally intended to. This was a positive thing in that I was feeling burned out both physically and mentally and needed the downtime, but it left me a little less fit than I had hoped to be at this point in December. I think I’m in position to start gaining that fitness back fairly quickly, but I’m not going to rush anything. The original goal was to run the 5k at the first Liberty indoor meet at the end of January and that’s still the plan, but if I don’t feel I’m ready, I’m ok skipping that or racing on the roads somewhere early. I still plan on racing a mini track season early in the year and seeing how that goes before deciding what direction to go in April, either staying on the track for a couple more meets then hitting the roads in May or hitting the roads earlier. The important thing is to stay healthy and work towards improving my VO2 and basic speed, the things I lacked the most in what was a decent 2012. Time to get to work!
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