Training Update

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted, and a lot has happened between then and now, some good and some not-so-good. I’m not going to post the details of the three weeks since my last training recap, but basically I had a very solid week of 83 miles plus a couple good workouts, then had a planned down week of 61 miles with just one workout, and finally wound up with just 48 miles this past week in what was the aforementioned “not-so-good” part of my recent training history.

The good news is, I’m not injured, but the bad news is, once again I seem to be struggling. For lack of a better description, my legs have just been dead for several weeks now. As a result, everyday runs have been a chore, and the idea of running fast workouts is downright ludicrous. After struggling through 3 miles at over 7:30 pace this past Wednesday, I pulled the plug and took 2 days completely off. Needless to say, when every run is difficult, your motivation to get out the door isn’t exactly high. I’ve felt better the past couple days, but I’m still not where I need to be, physically or mentally.

Certainly there are things I could look at outside of running that didn’t help things over the past few weeks, but at this point I think I’m going to have to acknowledge that I can’t train at 80+ miles per week for any significant period of time without burning out. Knowing I would have a couple weeks of lesser training in late November, I tried to string too many quality weeks together without a down week (against my coach’s advice, by the way), and now I’m paying the price. I think that’s my biggest takeaway from all this. I’m not totally convinced that something else isn’t off on top of that, but the overtraining part is fairly obvious. Perhaps I’ll get to a point where I can handle 80+ miles a week plus the quality training I need to do, but I’m not there right now, so I’m going to see if around 70 with a cutback week every three to four weeks will work. If not, I’ll cut back even more, although historically I’ve never had much success on mileage under 70 per week.

So, here I am, starting a new month and also attempting to get my legs back under me. At one point in time, I was going to make my indoor track debut this week with a 3k at Liberty University, with the USATF Masters All-American standard of 10:00 as the goal, but obviously that isn’t going to happen. I’m now eyeing the mid-January Liberty meet as my next race unless I decide to jump in a road race between now and then just to bust some rust. While my motivation for daily training has been lacking recently, my motivation to get back in shape and make a run at the USATF Masters standards this spring is still very much there. I just need to figure some things out then get after it. Onward!