Mon: 9 miles
Tue: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 7.5 miles plus hill bursts
Wed: 9.5 miles including 3 sets of 3X200
Thu: AM: 4.5 miles; PM – 7.5 miles
Fri: AM: 4.5 miles; PM – 9.5 miles, including 6 laps of ins-and-outs
Sat: 6.5 miles
Sun: 16 miles, including intervals
Total: 79 miles
This was a planned cutback week in terms of intensity but not in terms of volume. It probably should have been a reduction of both, but because my upcoming schedule will dictate a very light week next week, I didn’t want two out of three weeks to be low mileage, so after a discussion with my coach, this was the compromise. Overall the week turned out pretty well, with a very solid finish, but at the same time I battled tired, heavy legs throughout, a sign of all the work I’ve done over the past few weeks.
With the exception of Sunday, there’s not much of anything exciting to recap this week in terms of workouts. Tuesday I ran three sets of 3X200, with the goal being to start at 36 sec then get a little faster each set. I did pretty well through the first two sets, going 36, 35, 35, 34, 34, 34, but then I couldn’t get any faster in the last set. I did manage to dip under 34 on the last one, but 34 seconds seemed to be about all the leg speed I had in me. This was the fastest I’ve run a set of 200’s in a while, but I was a bit disappointed to have not gone a little faster in the last set. However, I took a couple positives away from it. First, I AM getting faster, and second, the fact that I was disappointed with this sort of effort shows a big mindset change for me. In other words, I’m headed in the right direction in more ways than one.
My next “workout” was simply six laps of ins-and-outs (12X100m strides) in the middle of Friday’s distance run. I tried to run them fast but relaxed, and they went ok. However, my legs were really dead by this point in the week, so it was more of a struggle than it should have been, and when I finished up I was already worried that Sunday’s big test was going to be a disaster.
The Sunday workout was a beast. It consisted of a 24 min w-up, 4X20 seconds with 40 seconds recovery, a 2 min jog, 3X7 minutes with 2 minutes recovery, a 3 min jog, 4X1 minute with 1 minute recovery, and finally a 44 min cool-down for a total volume of just over 16 miles, all in the hills of Fincastle. The pace goal for the 7 minute intervals was 5:40-6:00, and I figured I’d be on the upper end of that at best. However, I went through the mile in the first one in 5:34 then proceeded to stay in the low-end of the goal range the rest of the way. I lost my legs a bit during the 4X1 minute (still ran 5:20 pace or better), but I regrouped once those were over, and the first few miles of the extended cool-down actually felt pretty good. The end was a bit rough, but that was as much the result of running into a nasty headwind as anything else. Overall it was a very solid workout and a good confidence builder to show me I’m definitely on the right track.
This coming week will be a tough one both in terms of quantity and quality. After that, I get a much needed cutback week. I feel like I’ve made a good bit of progress over the last six weeks, the point where I set my goals for the coming year and consider myself to have gotten serious again. If I can stay healthy and continue on my current path, I feel like I’ll definitely be in position to challenge the sorts of times I want to run this coming spring. Much work remains to be done, though, so I gotta keep my head down and keep rollin’!
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