Training log - Week ending 7/28/13

This week was 33 miles of “real running” plus 13 “miles” pool running, "6 miles" on the arc-trainer, and 3000 yards of swimming breathing drills -- training log is here.  

Heh - and the mileage keeps falling.  I'll was feeling good this week, so I went ahead and raced a track mile on Wednesday night, following it by sleepwalking through a 5K tempo on Friday morning (36 hours later).  I was exhausted on Friday morning, thanks to a stretch of insomnia, but went ahead and did the tempo anyway (despite my coach's stern reminder of "if you feel like you are not recovered, skip this workout" - mea culpa).

And then I was sore everywhere.  Not one huge OMG I've injured this, but about 5 different muscles etc that demanded a day off, lest they become injuries.  Saturday, usually an easy 10, became an easy hour in the pool.

Again, mea culpa.  But I realized that I made not one but two mistakes.  The first was the obvious, doing the mile race, followed by the tempo.  The second is a bit more subtle.

I've know for some time that I'm pretty durable and can handle a lot of work if a) I build up to it carefully, and b) my speedwork is a relatively small proportion of my overall mileage.  But, when I take more than a day or two off, I need to ramp up carefully.

That's not what I've done the past few weeks.  Instead, I felt run down, with low iron, so I took several days down.  Then as soon as I felt good, I jumped back into workouts.  Soon after that, I got a tight calf, so I took a few more non-running days.  And then I jumped right back into it again.  And I ended up tweaking a bunch of stuff again.

As of Monday, I feel good, but if I rush right back into workouts, I'm just going to tweak something else (again). It's a bad cycle that will end up in a string of sub-par races and finally injury (likely in mid-September or early October) that will knock me out for the rest of the season.

So the plan for the near future is to do what I should have done two weeks ago.  Carefully ramp my mileage back up, skipping the intensity and the speed work.  And then come back to workouts, carefully, after I have quite a few easy runs under my belt.

It's going to really suck to miss tomorrow's workout, especially since I feel fine right now.  But I can either discipline myself now, or suffer later.  And hey, if I had been slower to come back a few weeks ago, I wouldn't be missing workouts now :)

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, 1500 yards of swimming breathing drills plus some upper body strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, 10 miles easy outside (8:09 pace) plus drills and strides.  Foamrolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, 1 miles very easy (testing different shoes), plus 500 yards very easy swimming.  In the evening, 6 miles, including a mile on the track in 5:39, followed by an ice bath.

Thursday:   In the morning, 50 minutes of easy pool-running for "5" miles plus 1000 yards of swimming breathing drills.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, 10 miles, including a sleepwalking tempo 5K in 20:15 (split as 6:37, 6:30, 6:22, 0:46).  Followed with injury prevention work and 20 minutes shakeout pool-running.   Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:   In the morning, upper body strengthwork and injury prevention work plus 60 minutes easy pool-running for "6 miles"; foam rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, a split long run - first did 6 miles easy outside (8:26 pace), followed by another 45 minutes on the arc-trainer at a moderately hard intensity (I'd say equivalent to another "6 miles" in effort).  Followed with injury prevention work.  Yoga and foam rolling at night.

Race report: DC Road Runners mile, July 24, 2013

I raced the mile today at the DC Road Runners Track Meet, finishing in 5:39.  Surprisingly fun, in that weird mile race way (I also enjoy stabbing myself with a pen recreationally).

I went back and forth on whether to race this or not.  Why not?  Well....

a) I hate evening races;
b) for a variety of reasons, I've cut my running significantly back the past few weeks, including cutting back the mileage, missing my team's last few hill rep sessions, and holding off on my gym plyometrics - I'm not exactly speedy right now;
c) we have a tempo workout scheduled for Friday morning, and I wasn't sure that Wednesday night to Friday morning was enough time for me to recover;
d) one of the reasons I've been cutting back is to work through some issues with tight calves and feet - I wasn't sure racing a mile was a good idea, given the last few weeks.

But, my coach really wanted us to do this race (plus, my ART guy told me this morning I was totally fine to race, so I didn't have that excuse), so I pulled on my big girl panties.  Who knows, maybe I was in better shape than I thought.  I also pride myself on being someone who's not afraid to race when I'm out of shape.  Things are never perfect - go with what you have and learn how to deal.

And if nothing else, this would be a chance to practice a different race strategy.  In my last few track miles, I've ended up leading a pack, and then getting outkicked by others. I thought this time I'd try to play that same game, and see how it worked for me.  Run patient, hold back until way close to the end, and then GO.  I decided that I really didn't care about the overall time or placing - I just wanted to see if I could run a spectacular last 200m.

So we started, and I tried to tuck in behind a pack. Of course, we went out a bit fast, but then a group settled down slightly, and I tucked in behind them.  And just let others set the pace.  I was comfortable.  Perhaps too comfortable, but this was what I wanted to play with this week.  I was going to sit and sit, and then finally kick, and see how that worked.

800 m to go, and I was still settled.  Usually I get impatient soon after that, and start extending my stride with about 600m to go.  This time, I waited, and waited, and waited.  400m to go, I sat behind someone, and waited some more.  Finally, a bit after the 200m to go point, feeling good, I tried to kick.  Thought positive speedy thoughts, relaxed forward, pumped my arms, fired my glutes.  I "envision[ed my] legs pushing off the ground and exploding with each stride."  And I believed....  And...

Nothing really happened.  Hah!

I just cruised to the finish.  Not horribly - I held a good solid pace.  But the explosive kick I had been saving up to deliver was a limp sparkler fizzling in the sand.

So maybe my tendency to pick up the pace a lot earlier and do a sustained push is the right strategy for me.  Or maybe my lack of kick is because I haven't done fast running or much in the way of drills, strides, etc) the last few weeks.  Who knows.  Either way, I'm happy to have tried something different.  You never know until you try.  And it's not like I had a horrible race, especially given my slight lack of fitness.

Splits were: 85, 85, 83, 86.  Again, I don't take these manually, but just set my garmin to autolap from the start point.  The Garmin GPS isn't perfect, so these are just approximations, but still.  What's interesting here is that, if the splits are more or less correct, then the last lap that I saved up and tried to kick on was my slowest, while the lap I really felt like I was holding back on was my fastest.

Which matches a common theme - when I try too hard, I run slower.  90% effort for me is much faster than 100%. Good to know.  Something to experiment with more in my next race.

Other notes:

• Beautiful weather.  And my team did really well!
• Horrible insomnia the night after the race.  Yup - night races are not for me.

Training log - Week ending 7/21/13

This week was 48 miles of “real running” plus 17 “miles” pool running, "9 miles" on the arc-trainer, and 1000 yards of swimming breathing drills -- training log is here.  


The first part of the week was dedicated to playing it safe as I babied my tight left calf.   Though I probably could have gotten away with the hill workout on Tuesday, it wasn't worth the risk, so I kept Tuesday's activities to 2 miles of easy jogging plus my old friend, the arc-trainer.

I'll say it again, you really can get a very good tempo workout on the arc-trainer.

By Wednesday, everything felt fine, so I resumed my normal running plan, though I still played it very cautious for the first half of Friday's workout, to make sure everything was kosher.  Everything held up well, so out of the woods on the left calf.

I do have some lingering concerns though - I've felt the last few weeks like my form isn't quite where it should be - especially my glutes (especially the left), which don't seem to be firing quite right, causing imbalances all over the place.  The result is that I seem to have all sorts of intermittent shifting aches that go away with rest, and return with running.  So, focus for the next few weeks is on glute activation stuff and drills (which I've slacked off on the last 2 weeks) to get myself back into good form.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, 55 minutes of easy pool-running for “5.5 miles," plus some upper body strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, 2 miles very easy outside, and then an arc-trainer workout of "20 minutes, 15 minutes, 10 minutes" - all at tempo effort, with 2:30 recovery between each.  I counted this workout, plus warm-up and cooldown, as equivalent to "9 miles."  Followed with injury prevention work and 20 minutes of shakeout pool-running.  Foamrolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, 7.5 miles (8:15 pace), followed by yoga.  Later did another 5 miles at 8:00 pace.  Sports massage at night.

My right leg (not the one that was tight)
a few days after Wednesday's massage. 
"Deep tissue" is right.

Thursday:   In the morning, 35 minutes of easy pool-running for "3.5" miles plus 1000 yards of swimming breathing drills, followed by some injury prevention work and upper body strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, 9.5 miles, including a modified tempo workout (weather was pretty bad) 4x1600 at tempo effort.  Split these at 6:30, 6:22, 6:17, 6:12.  Followed with injury prevention work and 40 minutes shakeout pool-running.   Yoga and foam rolling at night.

Saturday:   10 miles easy in the morning (8:03 pace); upper body strengthwork and injury prevention work plus foam rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, 14 miles as a moderate progression - split as 8:40 pace for first 5.5, 7:47 next 4.5, 7:13 last 4.  Followed with injury prevention work and 20 minutes shakeout pool-running.  Yoga and foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 7/14/13

This week was 53 miles of “real running” plus 24 “miles” pool running and 1000 yards of swimming breathing drills -- training log is here.  

A rebuilding week for me, plus a bit of workoutus interuptus.  My rest week last week did a ton of good for me.  By the beginning of this week, I felt bouncy and fresh again.  Of course, the trick then was not to dig myself right back into a hole, meaning don't blast your workouts just because you feel perky.  I was pretty good about running my workouts under control - especially Friday's tempo, where I took special care to keep the workout aerobic.

Of course, despite all this care, I ended up getting a tight calf on Saturday.  Nothing horrible, but definitely one of those things where I could either take a few days off now, or risk it developing into something longer term that I'd be battling for months.  I've gone down this road before, and I've learned that when a calf is tight, I can take 2-3 days off and fix it.  If I keep pushing it?  Then I get plantar fascia/achilles tendonitis issues that take a lot longer (connective tissue heals slower than muscle).  So, I ended up doing my Sunday long run in the pool.

In connection with this, I had a revelation of sorts.  Essentially, I tend to be a bit type A, with a tendency to compulsively do workout X or mileage Y NO MATTER what.

[my type A-ness is NOT the revelation, BTW]

Sometimes, I'm worse about this, at other times, I tend to be more relaxed and chill and willing to back off on a workout or cut it short or skip a day.  So, why am I able to back off or take a few days off sometimes, and not others?

Deceptively simple.  Overtraining/reaching has many symptoms, including emotional.  I think that, for me, one early warning sign that I'm pushing too hard is that I start getting OCD about my workouts.  When I'm not cooked, it's a lot easier to chill about only doing 3 repeats instead of 4, etc.  When I'm in a hole, I get tunnel vision, and an unwillingness to pull the plug.  If I'm really fried, then being told that I need to shut the workout down infuriates me, while a more rested me is better able to accept guidance and patience.

So simple, and also so evil.  Because it's a bad cycle.  The more I overreach, the harder it is for me to back off, and so I push even harder, which then results in....a deeper hole.

So, big lesson here is: the more emotionally important it is to me to do a certain workout/mileage/etc (and the harder it is for me to listen to others), the more I need to give serious thought to backing off (and to heed the advice of others).

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, 50 minutes of easy pool-running for “5 miles," plus some upper body strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, 12.5 miles, including 6 hill repeats - nonstop circuit of up a hill for about 2 minutes, a 90 second easy jog, a stride, and then some more easy jogging to the bottom (whole circuit takes ~5 minutes).  Followed with injury prevention work and 20 minutes of shakeout pool-running.  Foamrolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, 11.5 miles (8:15 pace), followed by yoga.  Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, 6 miles very easy (9:01 pace) plus drills, followed by some injury prevention work and upper body strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, 12 miles, including a tempo workout of 2x3200 plus 1600 (split as 13:11 (6:42/6:29), 12:59 (6:33/6:26) and then 6:07).  Followed with injury prevention work and 30 minutes shakeout pool-running.   Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:   11 miles easy in the morning (8:10 pace); upper body strengthwork and injury prevention work plus foam rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, "14 miles" in the pool - 2 hours of pool-running, including 2x20minutes at marathon pace effort, plus a sequence of 12x45 seconds very hard, 30 seconds easy.  Followed this with 1000m of swimming breathing drills, and then my fingers and toes were completely shriveled.  Yoga and foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 7/7/13

This week was 40.5 miles of “real running” plus 6 “miles” pool running  -- training log is here.  

Major rest/recovery week.   As I noted last week, I was feeling a bit run down.  And I have to fess up, even before then, I was noting a few trouble signs.  No major flashing alarms, and it's not like I was running horribly, but I was a bit cranky, my resting HR was slightly up, and it was harder to get going in the morning.  I was completing workouts, but feeling wiped afterwards, and my legs just felt a bit sluggish, with no higher gears.  I noted all this, but blamed it on the high humidity and high mold count.  I also noted that I was getting a bit more upset at little things, but again....humidity and allergies make most people cranky.

My coach had told us to do 4 hill repeats on Tuesday if we were racing on Thursday (not the normal 6-8). I wasn't sure whether I was racing or resting, but I figured either way 4 was the right number for me.  I did the 4, but at the end I was wiped.  And that was when I decided that a week of rest and easy running was probably best for me (my coach agreed).  No hard running before next Tuesday.

This week, I also got my iron levels (actually serum ferritin) checked again.  I won't go into the details, but I've had some minor issues over the past month that resulted in a notable amount of blood loss, which made me think it might be a good idea to check that again.   I eat plenty of steak/buffalo, so I was pretty sure I was OK, but what the heck - easy to check, and I know I'm supposed to stay on top of it.

Got the results back, and my serum ferritin was 40.  What does that number mean?  I have to fess up, I don't know exactly.  I do know that normal for me is between 55-65 (I've had it checked several more times since this post).   I also know that doctors will tell you that anything over 15 is fine (but they're not focused on performance).   In researching this stuff on the internet (which obviously has its own risks) it seems that most seem to suggest either 50 or 60 as a lower limit (see here and here, for example) below which performance starts to suffer.  But there's counter examples of runners who do well on much lower levels - Deena Kastor is rumored to have had ferritin well under 40.  Serum ferritin does seem to be one of those things where different people have different norms, and it's important to know what YOUR norm is.  And I'm significantly below mine.

I also don't know whether this lower ferritin level is a cause of why I've been feeling run down, or just a correlation - reflecting the fact that I'm a bit run down.  Or maybe it's totally unrelated - I'm definitely not anemic. For that matter, it's not like I'm running horribly either. But I think I'm at the edge of being cooked, and am hopefully pulling it back just in time. 

What I do know is that this whole thing supports two things that I did - taking a very easy week and reaching out to a nutritionist for a consult on the ferritin issue (plus advice on calcium uptake).  I'm not gonna rely on the internet here; I'll go to an expert.

In completely unrelated news, I made the best purchase ever on Thursday night - a pony of DOOM.  Four things I love are 1) stuffed animals, 2) ponies, 3) the color black, and 4) skulls.  Doom pony combines all four.  My life is now complete.


Dailies

Monday:  Nothing except foam rolling.  And a Game of Thrones marathon.

 
Tuesday:  In the morning, 8 miles, including 4 hill repeats - nonstop circuit of up a hill for about 2 minutes, a 90 second easy jog, a stride, and then some more easy jogging to the bottom (whole circuit takes ~5 minutes).  Followed with injury prevention work and 20 minutes of shakeout pool-running.  Foamrolling at night.

Wednesday:   Some light upper body weight training, plus foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, about 3 miles of jogging before and after a race (cheering during the race).  Later did 6 miles easy, and then a yoga class.  Did foam rolling later.  Partied with Doom Pony at night.

Friday:  In the morning, 40 minutes of easy pool-running for 4 miles, followed by light upper body strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:   11.5 miles easy (8:26).  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday:   12 miles easy (8:04 pace), followed by a yoga class.  Foam rolling in the afternoon.

Training log - Week ending 6/30/13

This week was 56 miles of “real running” plus 12 “miles” pool running and 1500 yards of swimming breathing drills -- training log is here.  

And, the heat and humidity is here in full force.  I don't know whether it's just the weather, or that plus the addition of some life stress, but I've felt pretty run down the past few days.  Sluggish, non-perky, cranky, mild headache, sleeping a lot more than my norm.  All indications that I need to focus a bit more on recovery, because apparently I'm not recovering enough.  First rule of training - if you think you're in a hole, don't dig harder.

So that's the plan for this coming week.  I felt lousy for a lot of this weekend (though oddly enough, fine before my race on Sunday), and so preemptively decided to take this coming Monday as a sick day to sleep a ton, eat a lot, and lie on my couch.  I felt a lot better by midday today, indicating that this was the right choice.

I'm supposed to race on Thursday, but I'll make a decision that morning as to whether I'll race it, run it as a workout (what I'm leaning towards), or skip and just play cheerleader.  And then after that, I'll probably take a break from racing for a bit.  I think part of why I'm so run down is just the fact that I've been racing about 3-4 times a month since mid-April.  Most of my races have been very short, but I think the frequent racing has still burned me out a bit mentally, and it's time to refresh.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, 40 minutes of easy pool-running for “4 miles," plus some upper body strengthwork.  3 miles easy (8:33) plus drills and strides, and then foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, 13 miles, including 7 hill repeats - nonstop circuit of up a hill for about 2 minutes, a 90 second easy jog, a stride, and then some more easy jogging to the bottom (whole circuit takes ~5 minutes).  Followed with injury prevention work and 20 minutes of shakeout pool-running.  Foamrolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, 10.5 miles (8:17 pace), followed by yoga.  Sports massage at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, 40 minutes of easy pool-running for “4 miles," followed by some injury prevention work.  9 miles, including mile repeats of 5:54 and 5:58 in the evening, followed by an ice bath.

Friday:  In the morning, 9 miles easy , including drills and strides.   Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:   1500 yards of swimming breathing drills, followed witrh injury prevention work, and foam rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, 3 mile warm-up, 1 mile track race in 5:38, and then 8 more miles.  Yoga and foam rolling at night.