This week is a much needed down week. When I drew up my training plan, I did not expect my long runs to progress as quickly as they did. I hit 32k before the end of my last high cycle, and I had only planned 1 35k run by now, and I put in 3. Those 3 runs took a pretty big toll on me. In hindsight, I probably would have done 2 of those runs, and dropped down to a 30-32k run in there.
The thing with marathon training for me is it's a learning experience. While I've done this volume of training before, even if it was 10 years or more ago, I've generally done it in 9-12 runs. I'm doing this volume in 3 runs, which means I'm doing more big runs. I've never done consistent runs in the 30k+ range.
This is one of the things I really love about running. You can constantly find challenges for yourself. Doing different distances, types of training, or changing how you train and seeing how your body reacts is a neat way to keep things interesting.
Monday brought my long run, and I was planning to do about 25k. It was a dreary day, with heavy cloud cover, and some rain and thunderstorms early in the morning. Nothing was coming down when I headed out, but I felt sluggish for the first 8-9k of the run. I decided then that I would just complete the loop I was doing, and see how far it took me. As long as it was over 21k, I would be happy. I ended up going about 24k, which I was happy about. I want to make sure I recover this week so I can feel good for the next block, so I'll back off the mileage a little more if needed.
Tuesday I had planned on doing track, but decided that an easy run would be better for me. I ran 8k home from work, and was happy with that.
I had planned to take Wednesday off, but a sore hamstring kept me off on Thursday. It was a strange one. I woke up sore in the morning, and it didn't go away all day.
Friday was 6 x 1 mile. I had done a similar workout 4 weeks earlier, and was hoping to really nail this one. I didn't. Actually, it was pretty rough. I started the workout alright, but it went downhill quickly. I ended up doing 5 x 1 mile and 1 x 1k, as the last interval was like hitting my head against the wall.
There are a lot of reasons why this workout didn't go as well as last time. The biggest was the temperature was around 20 degrees warmer than the last time I did it.
I thought I would feel nice and fresh after an easy week, but this didn't do much for my confidence. I can't dwell on it, because in 2 weeks I have 20 miles in relay legs to run, and then another 5 weeks to Toronto. I'll go back up again next week, but probably won't go as high as in my last high cycle. Right now I need to keep the training honest, but go light enough that I can feel relatively fresh.
Week total: 3 runs, 50km
Week total: 3 runs, 50km
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