Training Summary: 7/22 - 7/28

Mon: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8.5 miles plus drills/plyos
Tue: AM – 4.5 miles, including strides; PM – 9 miles including hill bursts
Wed: 11 miles, including 8X30 sec strides
Thu: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8.5 miles
Fri: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 10.5 miles, including 4X1 mile at MP plus 4X30 sec at 5k pace
Sat: 7 miles
Sun: 16.5 miles
Total: 89 miles

Another solid week of base building in the books, but I really struggled with tired, heavy legs throughout. Obviously the volume I’ve been running has a lot to do with that, and I believe the hot, humid weather has been a factor as well. However, I’m definitely going to have to monitor things over the next few weeks. The current surge with my training started seven weeks ago, and I’ve had weeks of 80, 84, 86, 86, 70, 90, and now 89 since that time, for an average of 83.5. It’s nothing I haven’t done before, but that’s a lot, and over the next few weeks things will likely break one way or another.

My hope is my body will adjust and then I’ll eventually break through and find both my training and fitness at a whole new level. However, there’s also the possibility that I will get progressively more tired and eventually wind up burned out or injured. I definitely want to avoid that. One thing is for sure, I can’t continue on as I have the past two weeks. I either have to adjust and start to feel better as well as be able to put a little more quality into my runs, or I will have to back out and rethink my approach. It’s all an experiment and only time will tell.

Anyway, aside from my legs being dead, this week really didn’t go too bad. On Monday and Tuesday I got in some drills/plyos, a few strides, and some hill bursts. That’s exactly what I need to do to improve my stride and turnover, although I’m not sure my legs were feeling good enough on any of those activities for me to get maximum benefit out of them, and that’s why I say I can’t continue on as is indefinitely.

Wednesday was a medium long run with 8X30 sec strides with 60 sec recovery thrown in starting at the one hour mark. It was a good way to simulate running hard when your legs are tired, but again, I struggled to get my legs going like I needed to. Even after an easy day on Thursday, I debated whether or not to do the Friday workout. I went through with it though, and in the end it didn’t turn out too bad. Andrew and I did 4X1 mile at marathon pace with 1 min recoveries then followed that up with 4X30 sec at 5k pace. The miles were right where they were supposed to be and for the most part felt easy, especially from an aerobic standpoint. The 30 second repeats probably weren’t as fast as they should have been, but they were good enough to make it a solid workout overall.

The week concluded with a long run in Fincastle that included the infamous “Wildcat Holler” loop. When all was said and done, the run totaled over 2,300’ of elevation change, so it was hilly to say the least. I actually didn’t feel too bad, but at the same I never felt all that good either. Furthermore, in spite of the fact I changed socks and shoes halfway through, I still had squishy feet at the end of the run, so that shows how humid it was (along with the fact that I sweat WAY too much!). We still managed to average 6:50 for the last 8 miles though, getting as fast as 6:37 for mile 15, so altogether it was a good cap to the week and a fairly solid run on tired legs.

This coming week will be week three of being “up” before I’ll take a down week next week. As long as I don’t see any signs of things really heading south, I plan on continuing to keep my training pretty similar to what’s it’s been over the past several weeks for at least this cycle and hopefully one more, with a cycle being 3-4 weeks up followed by a week down. If I can do so, that will give me 3 complete cycles, and will put me at 13 weeks total since the start of “the surge.” At that point I should have a pretty good idea of whether or not it’s working and where to go from there. Head down; stay at it!