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. :)5 Weeks [1 month & 1 week] to Clarksburg Half Marathon
8 Weeks [2 months-ish] to Cal International Marathon
EEK! Somehow translating weeks into months is not having the calming effect I had hoped it would.
Sigh. So this has been kind of a bummer of a week.
Monday: So I decided to take Monday (at least) off after my 16 mile long run the day before. I also finally got around to seeing a chiropractor (which my PTs and a couple of massage people have recommended, given my injury history). A friend of mine loves hers & recommended him, and he was fantastic. Friendly, confidence-inspiring, and not overly-enthusiastic about all the bone cracking. He did a few simple adjustments (one on my right ankle to loosen it up, a couple to re-align my pelvis, and one for the middle of my back), plus a good bit of soft tissue massage & passive stretching. That was all pretty awesome.
Tuesday: 8 miles (2 wu + 8 x 800 a la Yasso 800's) This was the first downer moment of the week. The run itself would've been awesome if it hadn't been for this. You can read about it if you haven't already. I'm still pissed as hell.
As for the actual workout, I went into this one pretty conservatively & not actually sure I'd be able to do any fast running at all, given the tendonitis in my left leg and the pull/strain/tweak/whatever in my right calf. Still, I figured I might as well warm up, try one 800, and if that went well, just keep doing them until I felt like I shouldn't. Thankfully, the pain stayed pretty low-grade (it was actually less bad running fast than it has been walking or running slower) so I was able to do them all without a problem.
I decided to kind-of-sort-of try doing them as if they were Yassos. I'm sure most of you know but if not, distance runner folk knowledge says that if you can run, say, 10-12 800 repeats in x:xx each (minutes & seconds), then you're about in shape to run a x:xx marathon (hours & minutes). From what I've heard & read, it seems to be a startlingly accurate predictor. I wasn't really doing Yassos because I was only planning on 8, but I figured that how hard / easy they were would at least give me a reasonable idea of where I am right now and whether my very tentative, completely casual, not-really-that-wedded-to-at-all goal of 3:30 seems reasonable.
I ran the first two in 3:29 & 3:27 respectively; that felt pretty easy, so I decided I'd try to stick with around that effort level for the first 4-5, and then, if I still felt good, see if I could speed up the last few. All told: 3:29, 3:27, 3:27, 3:27, 3:26, 3:25, 3:17, 3:21.
Not bad, eh? :D Of course, you never know until you try, but even after the last one, I really felt like I could have run a few more at the same pace without a problem. If Bart Yasso is to be trusted, and if I can get my stamina game in the right place, 3:30 may not be so unreasonable after all.
Wednesday:
Thursday:
I didn't bother trying to do any running for the rest of the week. Every morning I woke up with pretty bad pain in that calf muscle, in spite of having done no running at all since Tuesday. Even walking has been irritating it, so I've been trying to stay off of it as much as possible.
Saturday: On Saturday, I was super pumped about meeting up with a bunch of other Bay Area running (& other stuff) bloggers organized by Courtney at Pancakes & Postcards. Don & I were planning to head down to Stanford around 2:00 to get a bit of tailgating in before the game, so I figured I'd try to get to the meet up around noon, hang out for an hour or so, then come back home to get ready for the game. Alas, it was Fleet Week, and our meet up was at the Sports Basement in the Presidio. This was bad because a bunch of roads were blocked off, including the two easiest ways of getting to SB. After driving aimlessly around the Presidio for a while, I finally I called SB to see how they recommended I get there. They said there was really only one way, but that traffic was really bad. I decided to give it a shot, just to see. When it was nearing 1:00 & things were still barely moving, I finally admitted defeat & began the equally slow trek back home. Given what a crappy (no) running week I'd already had, this bummed me out extra hard. Sorry, guys! :(
Sunday: On Sunday I tried to force myself not to mope by doing all my strength training & stretching, which I had not been doing this week, because I was moping. (Did I mention stuffing my face with pumpkin bread? Just checking.)
But today (Monday 10/10), a light at the end of the tunnel. I had a follow-up appointment with the chiropractor, who suggested that the pain in my right calf could have been exacerbated by the adjustment he did to loosen up my ankle. It could be that having a greater range of motion than I'm used to has caused those muscles to have to work harder (even just walking). It's feeling a little better today, so I'm going to try a few easy miles (nothing crazy) & see how that goes.
Grand Total: 9 miles
But not for lack of trying. On the positive side, five days off seems to have taken care of the tendonitis in my left leg, and it's also given my legs a little break from the ever-present shin splints. (My orthotics come in on Thursday, so SUUUUUPER pumped about that.)
Here's to a less crappy week! Hopefully yours has been better than mine. :P
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