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. :)
4 Weeks to Bay Breeze 10K
9 Weeks to Oakland Half Marathon
Monday: No running; karate + strength work.
Tuesday: 2 miles easy wu + 4 x 5:00 @ 5K effort + 1.17 miles easy cd = 6 miles. OMG, I've missed being on the track so much! Given how hard my "easy" 4 mile run was on my legs the previous Sunday, I was a little tentative going into my first track workout in months, but it felt GREAT. Yes, I was a little slower than I was back in August, but significantly faster than I was expecting, so that's a plus.
Wednesday: No running; karate + strength work.
Thursday: 7 miles pseudo-easy. It was really supposed to be an easy day, but to be honest I just didn't have an easy run in me. As I've mentioned, easier runs in terms of effort have been significantly more painful for my legs & feet lately than faster ones; also it was raining today & I was not trying to spend more time than necessary out in it. I decided to do one loop of Golden Gate Park (fewer stoplights = less time in the rain) at a pace that was just fast enough to be slightly uncomfortable. I had some significant MT pain at first, but later in the run I experimented with increasing my turnover a bit and found that it actually did help (though I felt kind of ridiculous given that I wasn't really running fast enough to warrant, say, 100 strides per minute). In terms of re-building aerobic fitness, I was pretty pleased with myself for averaging 8:06 / mile going downhill & 8:28 going back up. Definitely not something I could have done two weeks ago.
Friday: 2 easy wu + 3 @ HMP (???) = 5 miles. A wet day out out at the track, though not especially cold (in fact, it was ten degrees warmer than Tuesday's speed session). Friday was supposed to be three miles at half marathon effort, but I got in a rush and left my Garmin at home (ironically, it seems more susceptible to being left behind than anything else) so I actually have no idea how fast I was running. I'm guessing somewhere between 10K & HM effort, but probably closer to HM. Not being back in great shape yet makes it a little more difficult to tell, and also my perception of how hard I'm running gets waaaay thrown off when I do anything other than intervals at the track and causes things to often feel tougher than they are.
Saturday: 6 miles easy. Some concerning MT pain (again) at times. Faster turnover does help some, but at a certain point this causes my "easy" run to become not all that easy anymore and I am not trying to do four tempo runs a week.
Sunday: 10 miles easy. I tagged along with Layla on the last part of her 20+ long run through Golden Gate Park, which was good because it was EXTREMELY wet & nasty out & we both agreed that we might have wussed out if we hadn't already planned to meet up. Also, this was my first double-digit run of 2012!
Grand Total: 34 miles
Progress! Hitting 2000 miles for the year means averaging ~38 per week -- I knew it would take some time to build up to that after taking December off, but it looks like I should be back in that neighborhood in another week or two.
Next week will be tricky because we're spending Saturday & Sunday in Sonoma with Don's parents and there really won't be any time for running (I think I've mentioned in the past that for me running & wine tasting weekends don't mix). That means that I really need to run every week day this week in order to stay on track with mileage, meaning that by this Friday I will have run on nine consecutive days. That's kind of a big deal for me -- I almost never run more than four days in a row, so it'll be interesting to see how my legs hold up.
Oh my, 9 weeks to Oakland! I signed up for the half so I need to start training hard. I might need to follow your lead and get back to the track. Good luck preparing for your 10K coming up seems like you are moving right along (unlike me).
ReplyDeleteHeh, better late than never. Good luck! :)
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