Mon: 7 miles
Tue: 7.5 miles, plus drills
Wed: 8.5 miles, including aerobic intervals
Thu: 6.5 miles
Fri: 8.5 miles, including 8X200m
Sat: 6 miles
Sun: 13 miles
Total: 57 miles
This past week was a nice step in the right direction on a couple levels. First, I seem to be over whatever the problem was with my ankle and I’m now training pain free, at least as far as that particular issue goes (more to come on that). Second, the structure of the week was along the lines of what I feel my training needs to look like. In other words, I covered the things I believe I need to work on to run well, doing drills, tempo-type work, turnover work, and a long run for strength. I need to add a few more miles as well as some doubles before being able to call it optimal, but I also need to feel a little more solid first, so for now this was good.
I did struggle a bit this week with both my right achilles and my left hamstring. I took a recommendation to stretch my calves more in hopes of alleviating my chronic achilles problem, and as has been the case in the past, doing so seemed to have the opposite effect. I’ve also been working on hamstring flexibility with the goal of lengthening my stride, and basically that felt worse as the week went on as well. By Saturday, both areas were really hurting and I had a miserable run as a result, to the point where I seriously thought about stopping early on several occasions.
I decided towards the end of that run that I was basically done stretching, and after no stretching the remainder of the day, I felt better on Sunday. To stretch or not to stretch has been a big debate lately, and you can find equally good arguments on both sides. I think it depends on a variety of factors, but my personal experience with stretching has generally been negative. That doesn’t mean I don’t still need to work on flexibility; I just think I’m better doing so through means other than stretching. That said, I’ll be using drills, foam rolling, and other methods going forward and leaving static stretching alone.
Getting back to the specifics of the past week, Monday and Tuesday were both easy days, and I finished the Tuesday run with 3/4 of a mile barefoot plus some barefoot drills. On Wednesday I did some of Andrew’s marathon pace workout with him, joining him for the first 10 min and last 7 min of his first 20 min push. The heat and humidity that afternoon didn’t help, but it was pretty sad that I couldn’t even handle the first half of his workout (2X20 min), especially when it was at his goal marathon pace (6:05), but that’s just where I am after taking three weeks basically off. As I stated in my post last week, I lose fitness faster than anyone I’ve ever known, so I just have to deal with it.
After an easy day on Thursday, I did some turnover work on the track on Friday, running some 200’s with a goal of being quick, yet relaxed (not easy at my current fitness level). I fatigued towards the end, slowing a bit and losing my form as a result, but overall they went better than expected and I averaged 36 sec without feeling like I was sprinting. I definitely need more of this sort of work going forward and plan on incorporating more accordingly. I concluded the week with the aforementioned miserable recovery day on Saturday followed by a decent long run on Sunday. Having not done a run farther than 9 miles in the past 4 weeks, I struggled a bit the last couple miles of the long run, but I handled it pretty well all considered.
More of the same on tap this coming week as I attempt to build my fitness back. I have absolutely no goals whatsoever right now other than getting fitter and faster as well as back to a point where I can enjoy training. I certainly hope to get to the point where I’m able to race a few times this fall, but my incentive to get back in shape is the fact that I won’t race unless I’m ready. I’ve always sort of let racing dictate my training, but going forward I will let training dictate my racing. If I feel I can run relatively fast, then I’ll race. Otherwise I’ll keep training until I get to that point. Run Fast; Run Happy!
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