Week in Review: Apr 9 - 15

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. :)

3 Weeks To M-A Big Bear Run 5K

5 Weeks To Windsor Green Half Marathon

Grand Total: 15 miles

* 11 easy
* 4 half marathon pace

This week has been a tough one. Knowing we'd be spending the weekend in Paso Robles where I wouldn't be running, I'd planned to try to get in some extra week day miles so as not to fall too far behind. Unfortunately, I strained my left hamstring pretty badly at karate Monday, and although I did get a few easy miles in on Tuesday, it was so sore & tight Wednesday morning that I could barely put weight on it. So between the two days I was too hurt to run & spending the weekend out of town, this ended up being my lowest mileage week of 2012 thus far. So you know. Not ideal, but what can you do. We did have a really fantastic weekend, though, which I needed, even if it meant running less this week.

Monday: Karate + strength work + hamstring strain while doing lunges. This always happesn to me -- I should really know by now to do 5 on each side & call it good. (While I no longer have super wussy hamstrings, I still don't have particularly strong ones.) For the rest of the night I couldn't raise my knee above waist-level and it just felt really tight and unhappy. It was even worse the next day, and the soreness/tightness went all the way up into my glutes. I had some shooting pains in the left side of my back with walking or running too, but I'm not sure whether that was related or just kind of random.

Tuesday: 2 wu + 4 x 10:00 @ 10K pace + ?? easy = 8 total 8 easy. I knew 10K pace intervals on a dysfunctional hamstring was a Bad Idea, but I thought I could probably get some easy ones in. Get them in, I did, but "easy" is not really the right word. The hamstring bugged me on & off the whole time, as did the weird shooting back pains. Plus I was having asthma problems. Plus I just felt totally and inexplicably exhausted. Like so many as of late, this was a run I was just glad to put behind me.

Wednesday: Karate + strength work.

Thursday: Rest/don't get more hurt

Friday: 2 wu + 4 @ HM pace + 1 cd = 7 total. By Friday morning I felt almost fully recovered so I headed to the track for some pace miles. It was incredibly windy, but even so, these really are just getting easier and easier, which is encouraging. 7:44, 7:42, 7:41, 7:35. I'd planned 2 cd miles, but the hamstring started to ache a little as I got close to finishing the first one, so I decided to play it safe.

Here's to a better, injury-free week coming up.