Mon: 8 miles
Tue: 6 miles
Wed: 8.5 miles
Thu: 6.5 miles plus hill bursts
Fri: 10 miles, including fartlek
Sat: 6 miles
Sun: 13 miles
Total: 58 miles
While this wasn’t a great week by any means, it was ok, and it should establish a good platform for moving forward. I think I’m finally past the flu or whatever it was that knocked me completely out for a week and hindered me for much longer than that, so maybe I can finally get down to work. The only thing I need at this point is a little cooperation from Mother Nature. The problem is, that’s not looking all that likely.
Speaking of Mother Nature, she definitely wreaked havoc on the first half of this past week. Tuesday was supposed to be 7-8 miles with some strides towards the end, but as things turned out, I considered myself lucky to be able to run at all. It was snowing hard and the roads were almost completely covered. It was definitely slick out, but fortunately I didn’t have any major issues. I did cut the run a little short so I could get home before it got even worse, and doing any strides, of course, was out. The schedule for Wednesday called for a 4-mile progression in the middle of the run, but that got scrapped as well. It was bitterly cold, windy, and there were patches of black ice on the roads, so we thought better of trying to run fast and just did what we could.
The weather finally broke some towards the end of the week, and Friday I managed to do my first workout in 17 days, a fartlek of 3X2 min, 5X1 min, and 7X30 sec, all with 60 sec recovery. Not only was this my first workout in 17 days, but it was my farthest run during that stretch as well, so I played it somewhat conservatively. Even at that, my legs were starting to tighten up towards the end, especially my quads and calves.
As a result of Friday night’s workout, I was nice and sore on Saturday, so I took it very easy with the hope of recovering well enough to do a little faster work inside Sunday’s long run. In spite of that, as well as getting in a good stretch and massage session Saturday afternoon, I could tell when I started Sunday morning that just getting in 13 miles would be challenging enough, so I scrapped any plans of doing intervals inside the run. Honestly, the only good thing I can say about this run was I got a little more motivated to get in shape with every mile that went by. I didn’t feel good and could tell that most of the reason for that was simply a lack of fitness/training. It was frustrating, but at least I know I can do something about it.
So, here I am at the beginning of February with the following challenge before me: get in shape and be ready to race this spring. After fairly lackluster training for a couple months then a bust of a January thanks in part to being sick, I’m in a hole and have my work cut out for me. In fact, I’m probably even farther behind than what I thought I was. That said, it’s time to focus, embrace the pain, and get to work, and if I can have a little good luck for change, I’ll definitely take that too! Onward!
1 comment:
Keep it up!!
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