Training Summary: 3/11 - 3/17

Mon: 4.5 miles (AM); 7 miles (PM)
Tue: 6.5 miles
Wed: 4.5 miles (AM); 10 miles, including fartlek (PM)
Thu: 6.5 miles
Fri: 5 miles
Sat: 13 miles, including 10k race
Sun: 6 miles
Total: 63 miles

It was definitely time for me to take a down week, and that’s ultimately what this turned into, mainly because that’s what my body told me it needed. The problem is I didn’t go about it the right way, so it definitely wasn’t an optimal cutback. I had originally planned on sticking to a normal training schedule through at least Wednesday and also running long on Sunday. However, after dragging on Monday and having a rough day at work on Tuesday, I modified the plan. I also adjusted the end of the week based on the knowledge that I’ve gotten myself in trouble in the past running too far and too hard the day after races of 10k and up.

Moving on to the details, Tuesday’s distance run turned into a recovery day ahead of the workout on Wednesday. That workout consisted of a fartlek of 5/4/3/2/1 min on with various recoveries. I doubt I even need to mention the fact that it was windy that day since it always seems to be windy around here anymore. However, in spite of less than optimal conditions and not feeling all that great either, I wound up averaging 5:18 pace for the hard parts of the workout and even averaged 5:53 for the entire fartlek including the recovery intervals. I took that as a good sign, as that’s about as fast as I’ve run for that sort of workout in a while.

After a couple easy days, I ran the Shamrock Hill 10k on Saturday, which I will recap in another post in the next day or two. The end result of that event was me winning in a time of 35:04, but if not for some mid-race confusion, I’m not sure how things would have turned out, both time and place. Regardless, the course did turn out to be accurate and I got the rust buster as well as the feedback I was looking for. As mentioned previously, I concluded my week with a recovery day on Sunday, which might not have been what I wanted to do but I’m confident was the right decision. The fact that it was in the mid-40’s and raining did make the choice a little easier.

Ok, that’s the week that was and is all for now. Run hard, run fast, and keep rollin’!