Hey all,
Unfortunately I've not had a great week. My left leg started playing up and I'm not sure what happened. I suppose the increased mileage from last week really started to bite me in the butt and I'm paying for it right now. So I took 2 days off running to get the leg back into shape. It's still uncomfortable, but not serious enough to stop me running completely (well, I hope!). And also, we're reaching the most critical stage of the schedule and getting injured is the very last thing I want happening! Here's the lowdown for this week.
Monday
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 27 mins 25 secs, 3.7 km.
Tuesday
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 45 mins, 6.7 km.
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 54 mins 48 secs, 8 km.
Wednesday
Type: Mixed pace
Time and Distance: 71 mins 45 secs, 15.06 km.
Detail: Warm up for 15 mins (2.4 km). 12 mins at threshold with 120 secs recovery (approx 2900m). 6 x 3 mins at 10k pace with 90 secs recovery (approx 760m). 12 mins at threshold (approx 2750m). Cool down for approx 15 mins (2.4 km).
Saturday
Type: Recovery
Time and Distance: 47 mins 30 secs, 7.5 km.
Sunday
Type: Progressive
Time and Distance: 85 mins, 16.4 km.
Detail: Warm up for 30 mins at recovery pace, 30 mins at marathon goal pace, and 30 mins at threshold pace. In reality, had to cut the run 5 mins short, and the pace today was slower than my intended marathon goal pace. Kilometre splits were: 4:28, 4:31, 4:39, 4:41, 4:41, 4:43, 4:42, 4:53, 4:51, 4:49, 4:54.....
Total Weekly Distance: 57.36 km
Comments: Not a great week. Discomfort in my left leg is giving me some concerns and I'm pretty disappointed with Sunday's run, although I'm not going to blame the left leg. I thought about taking the first part of the run slowly, but pretty soon I was running out of gas and got slower and slower. When it came time to run at threshold I just couldn't go any faster.
Improvements: More speed work to keep the legs turning over. Another comparatively low volume week lies ahead, so hopefully I can put in an excellent week left leg permitting!
Let's be completely honest here - there's only 7 weeks to go and I'm still coming up short hitting those target times. If Sunday's run is anything to go by, I have to be realistic and say that I'm very unlikely to break 3 hours this time around. I'm considering revising my target time for Berlin, perhaps I can shoot for 3:10:00 and qualify for Boston next year - now that would also be nice to have! It's a bit disappointing to realise at this stage that I won't meet my main goal, but there are always other races to train for and run... as long as my body is able!
Not yet derailed,
Aaron
3 comments:
Hope the leg heals up soon and lets you keep training as intended. I am wondering if loading up on so many recovery pace runs is perhaps the culprit? I am not a very experienced runner, but I feel that doing multiple "recovery" runs is just asking for trouble. What are you recovering from if not another recovery run? I recognize that keeping the weekly mileage up to where you want it to be is a big motivator and I certainly have fallen into that trap myself, but at the risk of injury it is simply not worth it. Perhaps replacing some of those recovery paced runs with no running at all (especially your two-a-days) will let you hit your target pacing on your key quality runs.
Just a thought. All the best!
Hi Vava,
You raise a very interesting point. I do keep the recovery runs as easy as possible so that the extra mileage doesn't led to burnout, and it has taken a bit of an adjustment to run that slow since I've normally taken them faster than I should. I actually enjoy taking these runs slowly and feel that these runs contribute to the weekly mileage without hurting the body.
I may skip out a couple of recovery runs this week but I don't believe it led to my sore leg. I think it's due to the repetitive nature of the track work I've done recently. Maybe the extra running might affect my target pacing on my key quality runs, so I will see by skipping out on some of the recovery running.
Yes, track work is definitely tough on the body! I've added a short recovery run in recent weeks and run it as slowly as possible not so much to add mileage, but to shake the junk out of my legs after a good week of running and the day before my long run. I've found it helpful in that my legs feel better at the end of the 4-5k than at the beginning, but I am cautious about adding another recovery run the day after my long run. That being said, I seem to be more injury prone than most and if I could run pretty much every day I'd probably do it!
Cheers!
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