Training Summary: 5/11 - 5/17

Mon: 5.5 miles
Tue: 6 miles
Wed: 6.5 miles
Thu: 5 miles
Fri: 6.5 miles
Sat: 5 miles
Sun: 2.5 miles
Total: 37 miles

I guess overall this week was a success. The real goal at this point in time is simply to get out and run, and I did so without missing a day. The problem is, that’s all I did, and furthermore I didn’t do that in an optimal manner, so accordingly things could have been better.

As I mentioned in my last post, my fitness level is about the worst it’s been since I started running consistently 23 years ago, and my daily runs show it. Most days this week were in the 7:40 range pace-wise, yet my average heart rate was up in the mid-160’s. In other words, while the pace is what I would call stupid slow for me, the effort is NOT easy. For example, on Wed I ran 6.5 miles at an average pace of 7:34 with an average HR of 168 and a max of 180. Based on the HR data, when fit, a similar effort would normally yield somewhere in the 5:50-6:00 pace range, so whether I like it or not, that’s a workout!

The problem is most of my days this week were like that, and by the end I was starting to wear down. Fri was a real drag and I probably should have bagged it early. However, I had company and got talked into continuing, and as a result I felt even worse on Sat. Then, by Sun, I was really feeling it and had to do nothing more than a shakeout run, 2.5 miles at 8:10 pace.

Even though I’m ridiculously out of shape, the basic principles of training still apply, and because of my situation and how I got here, I don’t feel like spending several months slowly building mileage and doing base training is the best plan. In other words, I feel like I need to train as if I were in shape, just on a scaled down manner to match my fitness. That means easy days, medium days, hard days, long days, short days, etc., which is where I feel I failed this past week. I was basically doing a medium day every day. Obviously I wouldn’t do that when in shape, and I shouldn’t be doing it now. Furthermore, I learned through an incident on Wed that my hamstring is still not 100%, so I also need to be working on that and doing the little things to get healthy and stay that way. I did none of those this week.

So, bringing it full circle, this week wasn’t a failure, but it wasn’t a total success either. There’s always room for improvement, and right now I have plenty of that in more ways than one. Time to get to work!