This is my weekly training journal. Including it in the blog gives me a little extra accountability in the mileage department & helps me stick to my schedule. :)Finally, my life seems to be getting back to a point where I can get a decent amount of mileage in regularly. I did manage to break twenty this week, which was novel and exciting. I didn't get in the full scheduled thirty thanks to a little bit of madness Tuesday through Thursday, but I tried to make the best of it and salvage what I could.
Sunday: 8 miles easy. And for the first time since I was training for Santa Cruz, it actually was. Normally I like to drive down to the park for anything over 6 miles in order to cut down on stop lights and hills, but as my car is currently missing a back window (thanks, Mission), I just started at the house, ran down to the Panhandle, made a few laps there, and ran back. My hip feels strangely fine (not 100% pain-free, but certainly better than it has been); I am beginning to suspect that the pain I was having last weekend wasn't completely due to running. In the mean time, I'm trying to be diligent about my stretching & strengthening work from PT. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.
Tuesday: 5 miles (1 mile warm up + 4 mile tempo run). I have a hard time with tempo runs; unless I wear a heart monitor or run on the track (it's difficult to find long stretches of flat ground around here otherwise), it's difficult for me to tell for sure how close I am to tempo effort. Sometime I feel like I'm fading & glance down at my Garmin to see I'm running low sevens; at others I think I'm cruising along and realize my pace has crept up to to the low eights. The hills make this even more difficult; it's so much easier when I can just cruise around the track and go by pace. So, to be honest, my 4 mile "tempo" run was actually probably vacillating between 5K and half marathon pace, because I think I tend to worry more about erring on the side of running too slow than I do about running too fast.
Friday: 5 miles (1 mile warm up + 10 x 400 fast + 1.5 miles easy). Yet another failed attempt at getting to the track. Due to my work schedule, it's been a little harder logistically to make it out there, so the speed workouts I've been meaning to add back in the last couple of weeks have fallen by the wayside. Track or no track, though, I was determined to get some speed work in this week, so poor man's intervals through the neighborhood it was. And WOW, there's nothing like short intervals to show you how far out of race shape you are! Although I did manage to keep up the same pace as back in February and March, the last 100 yards or so of each interval were MUCH more miserable. Initially I was shooting for 12 x 400 (my old standard); after six I was questioning whether that was really wise. In the end, though, I managed 10, and probably could have finished the last two if it weren't for my left hamstring threatening to cramp up. I decided that 10 x 400 was plenty for my first speed workout in over two months and just added the last half mile to my cool down jog. To be honest, I don't recommend intervals in the neighborhood; between the impact of pavement, hills, traffic lights, uneven (& sometimes treacherous) terrain, and dodging pedestrians, dogs, and strollers every 20 yards or so, one really starts to long for the monotonous predictability of the track.
Saturday: 7 miles (4 easy + 3 @ 10K pace). Huzzah for finally getting out to the track! Nothing makes me appreciate a soft, smooth, predictable surface more than multiple weeks of running through my neighborhood or the park. Most of the time if I'm at the track it's for a speed workout, but sometimes it can be really nice to do some easy, meditative miles on the oval and not have to worry about pedestrians, hills, traffic lights, etc., especially if it's pretty empty (which it tends to be on Saturday evenings).
Grand Total: 25 miles
All in all, not a bad week. Work should be calming down some next week, so with any luck I'll actually get in five solid days of running.
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