Training log - Week ending 8/07/11

This week was 40 miles of “real running” and 30 “miles” pool running plus 2000m of swimming -- training log is here.

This was a rough week. I struggled for reasons that I don’t believe are related to my fitness, and so I decided to back way the heck off. My target peak racing season is October to December, and so it made absolutely no sense to run myself into the ground fighting to complete workouts that were tougher than they should have been, or to hit a certain mileage this week.

The first part of the week, I was on antibiotics (Bactrim) for my blister infection, and they knocked me for a loop. Bactrim’s side effects include “shortness of breath” -- it’s actually contradicted for people with asthma, but I’m assuming that precaution is meant for people with more serious problems, not my mild need-an-inhaler-before-track issues.

Well, “shortness of breath” just about describes it. My strength was very clearly fine; it was just that my aerobic capacity was about half the norm (noted in running, swimming, and pool-running). I stopped my track workout after the first set of three planned – I felt as tired after the first set as I normally do after the final set, and I thought that was sufficient reason to make the first set my last. I tried to do 20 minutes of swimming breathing drills afterwards, but struggled there too. I can normally work up to 13 strokes (very easy, with pull buoy) between breaths; I couldn’t do more than 7 on Tuesday. Without the pull buoy? It was very hard not to breathe every two strokes.

So, contacted my doctor and described the trouble I was having, and she agreed I could stop the antibiotics before the full 10 day cycle was done, due to the side effects (I was having a few others not directly running-related).

I stopped the Bactrim after Tuesday afternoon, and had a pretty good run on Wednesday. Of course, I then had a long and somewhat stressful day at work on Thursday, followed by a rare bout of insomnia (I don’t think the two were related) on Thursday night, resulting in 4 hours of lousy sleep. I debated skipping tempo on Friday, but the weather was so nice that I couldn’t resist. So, I showed up (acting like a space cadet) and ran a short 5K tempo at a slower pace. Not ideal, but I got something done, and I didn’t dig myself into a hole. Even after that shortened workout, I was totally beat with symptoms that felt like a cold might be coming on, so I skipped Pilates.

Tons of sleep (9.5 hours on Friday night!) later and I felt like myself for Sunday’s long run. I played Sunday’s run pretty carefully though – running out and back with a friend for 10 easy miles. After the 10 miles, I felt OK, so I went ahead and turned it into a progression long run that went pretty well, given the bad conditions (temps in upper 70s, dewpoint in mid 70s). Hopefully this is an indication that I’ve got all of these frustrations behind me – I really dislike not finishing workouts.



(aside - Elizabeth was nice enough to grab my running gait evaluation videos from a few weeks back and post them on Youtube at my request.  I've updated the log entry discussing that gait analysis to show the videos)

Dailies

Monday: 60 minutes of easy pool-running for “6 miles,” and then some injury prevention work . Stretching and foam-rolling at night.

Tuesday: In the morning, 7 miles on the track. Prescribed workout was 2-3x1600, 800 – half-distance recoveries between intervals. I ran 6:17, 2:56 for the first set, and then called it a day – I was pretty clearly not myself, and no reason to dig myself into a hole. So jogged easy while cheering my teammates, and then hit the pool for 30 minutes of pool-running (“3 miles”) and 1000m of swimming breathing drills. Upper body strength-training at night.

Wednesday: 10 miles easy outside (8:22 pace) on a hilly route. Followed with 40 minutes pool-running for “4 miles” and then 1000m of swimming breathing drills.

Thursday: In the morning, 50 minutes of easy pool-running for “5 miles” plus upper body strengthtraining. Injury prevention exercises, foam rolling, and stretching at night.

Friday: In the morning, 8 miles on the track, including an abbreviated tempo 5K workout on the track (6:52 pace – splits of 6:56, 6:49, 6:43, and 50 second (6:40 pace) for final 200m). Followed with 20 minutes of pool-running (“2 miles”) but skipped my scheduled evening Pilates class.

Saturday: In the morning, 70 minutes easy pool-running for “7 miles.” In the afternoon, light upper body strength training plus foam-rolling, injury prevention exercises, and stretching.

Sunday: In the morning, a long run of 15.5 averaging 8:00 pace – the first 5 miles (uphill) were 8:37 pace, followed by 6.5 miles at 7:52 pace (downhill+flat) and 4 miles at 7:23 pace (flat - including the final mile at 7:00 pace and then a 6:00 pace 400m kick). Pretty happy with this one.

I followed this up with some injury prevention exercises, and then 30 minutes very easy pool-running for “3 miles” to shake things out. Yoga and foam rolling tonight.