Big trouble in little Guelph

August 12-18

So, as I implied at the end of my last post, last week was HARD. I had a long, sustained effort on Monday that was also my longest run in 4 years, did a 3k time trial the next day, and did a Friday tempo which was far too hard of a effort. A weekend without running was my hope to feel better.

Monday long run came around. I wanted to go 35-36k with some tempo later into the run. I figured I would take it easier earlier in the run, and that would leave me fresher for the tempo.
About 20k into the run I knew I wasn't feeling great, but I figured it would be fine. I hit 25k and started to do the tempo. Being a bit of a slave to my Garmin these days, I was watching the pace rather than just judging the effort. Hitting my tempo time goal wasn't as easy as it should have been. I was running out near Cook's Mill and Carter Rds, and I took the trial along the scout camp back to Stone Rd. I turned to run up Stone Road hill to make my way to the Arboretum. That hill crushed me. I backed off of my pace, but the rest of my run felt like a slog. The effort was there, but the pace was not. I finished the run at the store and was just spent.

Tuesday came around, and I had to take my daughter, Emily, to daycare. Being in a 1 car family with my wife needing to head out of town early, I put my Emily on the bike and made the 10k trek to daycare. By the time I got to work, I knew a run was out of the question. I ended up picking my daughter up from daycare and biking home with her, but no run for the day.

Wednesday and Thursday were easy runs. I wanted to focus on recovering, so I took it fairly easily. I stuck to my normal routine and put Emily in the stroller for the trip to daycare. Thursday I was feeling a bit better, so I put in my normal 16k, but tried to keep it a bit easier.

Friday came around and I was feeling a bit fresher. I wanted to take another crack at the same tempo run the week before. I'm fixated on doing some hard running on hills right now because my STWM tune up event is the Reach the Beach Relay in New Hampshire. It's a 12 person, 200 mile relay that some of my old university team mates won last year. The course is challenging, and I have over 20 miles in legs to run, including a really hard, hilly leg in the middle of the night. I don't want to be the guy who drags the team down.
So, I set out to do the "Drive In Run" again, but planning 10k of tempo this time. I felt better heading into the run, and knew the route better, so I was confident I could handle the workout. The tempo came around and I kept myself well paced and level headed through all of it, averaging 3:38/km for the 10k, and getting in a 25k run total. I felt great after the run, and it was a real confidence boost. I thought about running on Saturday, but ended up taking it off. Better to recover.

Next week: my last 'up' week in this cycle. After that, I'll drop my mileage, and then plan for the next 3 weeks with the RTB relay in the middle of it all.

Weekly total: 4 runs, 88km