Training Summary: 7/1 - 7/7

Mon: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8.5 miles
Tue: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 9 miles
Wed: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 9 miles
Thu: AM – 8.5 miles, including strides; PM – 4.5 miles
Fri: 6 miles plus hill bursts
Sat: 11 miles, including 5k race
Sun: 16 miles
Total: 86 miles

This was another solid week, especially from a mileage standpoint. My quality work was limited by all the rain we got, but in the end that might have been just as well based on how I was feeling. The idea was to do some hill bursts on Tuesday followed by a turnover workout on Wednesday, but thanks to torrential downpours both days, neither was possible. Wednesday was actually some of the hardest rain I’ve ever run in, and the last three miles of that run were downright ludicrous. I could hardly even see it was raining so hard. Needless to say, when your shoes are that soaked and heavy and the roads and track are standing in water, there’s not much point in trying to run fast, especially when the work you’re looking to do is near top speed.

I finally got a brief reprieve from the weather Thursday morning and was able to do some 30 seconds strides towards the end of that run. I felt like I moved fairly well on those, but doing so required more effort than I would have liked due to my legs being tired and heavy. I threw in a few hill bursts towards the end of Friday’s run, mainly because I hadn’t been able to do them all week and consider them to be an important part of me getting some length and power back in my stride.

Knowing I was coming in tired, I was just hoping for a good solid effort in the race on Saturday, the Run for Snacks 5k in Alderson, WV. I was also looking to get at least a rough indication of where my fitness was after the last several weeks of training. The race didn’t start until 9:00AM, and by that time the sun had broken through the clouds and was heating things up. Between that and a course that had 406’ of total elevation change, with the majority of that coming in the second half of the race, it wasn’t necessarily a day to run fast. The race went out quick, as is typical for 5k’s, and eight tenths into the first mile I was running 5:06 pace. Unfortunately that’s where I encountered the first hill of the day, which was steep enough to slow my mile split all the way down to 5:18. The next half mile was basically flat, but from there things got tough, and by 2.5 miles I was starting to lose my legs. Fortunately the last third of a mile was downhill, and I was able to gather up enough to cross the line in 16:51, winning by a little less than a minute. All considered, I’ll take it for my first race as a 40 year old.

I concluded the week with a long run in Fincastle with Andrew, and this one got downright ugly. I felt pretty good for the first five miles or so, but thanks to the humid conditions and the sun popping in and out of cloud cover, by mid-way through my shorts and shoes were already soaked and I was starting to feel less than stellar. The remainder of the run got progressively worse, as I was starting to get dehydrated and just didn’t feel good at all. Somehow I managed to keep it together enough to finish out 16 miles, but it was neither easy nor fun, and I paid the price the remainder of the day with multiple symptoms of dehydration.

My last four weeks have been 80, 84, 86, and 86 miles, and I was definitely noticing all the cumulative work by the end of this week, which is exactly why I’m glad this coming week is a down week. I’ll be looking to drop back by around 20%, so somewhere in the 65-70 mile range. Four weeks of building was probably a little more than I should have done, and going forward I’ll generally look for around three weeks up before taking a week down. I think that’s a pretty good formula. Down weeks allow your body to absorb the work you’ve been doing and therefore not only help keep you healthy but can lead to faster fitness gains as well. Not taking those down weeks has been a mistake of mine in the past and I definitely have to avoid repeating that error in the future.

That’s all for now.