My right calf felt tight and my lower back started bothering me late Sunday night. I started with a short walk to try to loosen things up (and enjoy the sunshine a bit!). The only strengthening exercises that I did this week were for my core (no squats, calf raises, etc). Most of my time was focused on stretching and yoga. It felt really good and I felt so much better afterwards.
Tuesday
10x1:00 at 5k effort followed by 2:00 of recovery. I measured one of my 1:00 speed sessions and calculated my pace to be 6:22. This was definitely too fast for me. I am not used to running speeds under 7:00 and am having a hard time gauging my pace while running. This is definitely something I need to work on.
Wednesday
4.86 miles of hills. On Wednesdays I like to run with a local running group. Right now we are using our winter route because our summer route is iced over. Both routes feature a huge hill around the halfway point, however, the winter route has a bunch of extra bonus hills throughout the run. After running so hard on Tuesday, my legs were not impressed.
Thursday
I took my rest day a day early. My legs were pretty tired from the intervals on Tuesday and the hills on Wednesday. I decided it would be better to take a rest day rather than keep pushing my tired legs.
Friday
6.51 miles once again featuring some lovely hills. Since my legs felt much fresher today the hills didn't cause any issues while running. The biggest hill that I encountered took me 10 minutes to reach the top. I know my pace was slower for this climb than the rest of the run, but I tried to just focus on keeping an even effort.
Saturday
5.66 miles including an assortment of technique drills. I did maybe 80% of the drills mentioned in this video. I am aiming to do them all, but I forgot a couple of them while I was out running.
Sunday
10.63 miles of agony. Mentally I really wanted to be out running, but my body just did not want to cooperate. The first 6-7 miles or so were pretty brutal. My legs were tired and stiff. My stomach was a weird mix of side stitches and cramps that switched sides every 5 minutes or so. I'm not entirely sure why this run sucked so much, but I just tried to maintain a nice slow pace and took a minute or two to walk as needed. Even with a handful of walking breaks my average pace was 10:17, so not too much slower than usual. I don't know what changed, but the last few miles of the run actually felt pretty good, even when I was splashing my way through some mud puddles.
Nice week of training! I love that you're incorporating such a variety of things - speed, technique drills, hills etc.
ReplyDeleteI have had a few long runs lately that are just like what you describe - my head is into it but my legs just aren't having it. I've found that this usually happens when I'm not well rested enough going into the long run, aka, haven't been doing enough easy running. Often my legs are more tired than my body thinks they are after a week of running. Do you plan to incorporate easy running into your regimen? I've always struggled with easy running so it was hard for me to get used to this, but now that I'm doing it I'm seeing how it really is helping me.
I have trouble gauging my pace on shorter intervals too. I mostly do longer intervals now for marathon training, but when I would do shorter ones like 400s I would always blaze out way too fast (unless I was doing them on the mill when I could control the pace).
I think you are right, this week didn't have enough easy running in it, and it caught up with me at the end of the week. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday were all supposed to be easy runs. The hills just sort of...happened. Wednesday I was running with a group and I used Friday's run to actually get from one place to another...it just happened that the routes were hilly. This week I am going to be sure to avoid the hills (with the exception of Thursday when I have hill repeats scheduled).
DeleteThe technique drills were also new to me, so I think they may have tired me out more than I anticipated.
Ooof. I hate when long runs just become a big slog. Maybe you were just feeling tired from all of the other workouts you did this week? Especially if your speedwork was a lot faster than you meant it to be. That can be really draining.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that was the case. I took Monday as a rest day and have felt much better this week!
DeleteThanks for the drills video! I need to do some of those. My coach did a gait analysis for me and I lock my knees before striking, so I need to figure out how to fix that. Sorry your long run was so tough. Great job muscling through!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! I haven't had my gait analyzed before, but it seems like it could be really beneficial.
DeleteGreat week of training! It looks like your poor shoes took a beating, but that means you're doing it right!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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