Mon: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8.5 miles
Tue: AM – 8 miles, including hill bursts
Wed: 12 miles
Thu: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8 miles
Fri: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 6.5 miles
Sat: 8 miles
Sun: 15.5 miles
Total: 80 miles
I always seem to struggle a bit with my training the week after I get home from a vacation and this was no exception. I tend to get less rest on vacation than I do at home, and my diet generally isn’t as good either. Factor that in with running 81 miles plus several solid workouts the week I was away, and I came into this past week a little tired and never really caught up. Overall it wasn’t a bad week; it just wasn’t optimal, not that every week can or even needs to be perfect.
The first couple days of the week were pretty standard. As a side note, I’m starting to do some strides, drills, plyos, etc. towards the end and after runs in the hopes of putting some “snap” in my legs, and I did those things several times this week, including after Monday’s run. Wednesday was supposed to be a track workout, but it didn’t take a lot of effort to talk me into doing a medium long run instead. We had a good group together for that run, and it actually turned out to be a pretty solid day with lots of 6:40’ish miles over a rolling loop.
I doubled on Thursday and Friday and planned on jumping on the track on Saturday for a workout. However, I purposefully allowed myself to sleep in that morning and I could tell based on how hard I slept that I needed the extra rest. Once I got up, I decided to have breakfast and run mid-day, at which point it was ridiculously windy, so rather than beat my head against the wall on the track, I just did a run from my house and threw in some 30 second strides in the last couple miles. I tried to run most of them around 3k pace and was very consistent between 5:01 and 5:03 pace. I got after the last couple pretty hard and was right at 4:40 pace for those. That sort of pace feels much faster than it should, but the good news is I’m at least able to do it now, which is not something I’ve always been able to say over the past couple years. I’m hoping that’s a sign that I’m starting to get at least a little speed and turnover back.
I finished the week with a solid long run in the hills of Fincastle. This one basically turned into a 15 mile progression run with 5 mile splits of 36:24 (7:16 pace), 34:38 (6:55 pace), and 31:47 (6:21 pace). I finished with a 6:03 for mile 15 then added a half mile to ease out. After not feeling that great early, I felt really strong in the second half of the run and I was pleased with the way it turned out. This is how I used to run a lot of my long runs, and if I could get back in the habit of doing them this way at least from time to time, I think it would be beneficial. It definitely makes you strong.
I’m really not sure how this coming week is gonna go. I’ve got several things going on that might interfere with training, including the annual Roanoke-VA Tech Twilight Meet on Thursday. I’m just going to play things by ear and see what happens. After hitting 81 and 80 miles the past two weeks, if it winds up being a bit of a down week, that will be ok. Onward!
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