Training log - Week ending 2/01/2015

This week was 44 miles of running, 3 "miles" of pool-running and 4000 yards of swimming  -- training log is here.

Most wintry weather this week.    But that’s OK – it honestly pales next to what people up north are dealing with.  Tuesday was supposed to be a pyramid workout on the track, which was cancelled due to a poorly timed overnight snowstorm.  Fortunately, my coach agreed to do a make-up workout on Wednesday under the Whitehurst Freeway (once again). 

The weather was better on Friday morning, but I skipped tempo in favor of a half-marathon on Saturday as a rustbuster.  I didn’t care about the time as much as I cared about getting a race-level effort in – I haven’t raced since Philly in November, so this was much needed.   

As for why I picked a half?  Well, there were several reasons.  I find that racing halves and 10 milers does wonderful things for me fitness-wise; more so than any other distance.   Additionally, I want to focus on this distance this spring, so I liked doing one to get more of a feel for the pacing of this distance (which is something I still struggle with, despite having run quite a few of them).  Finally, I’m in Tampa for work most of this coming week, and will have to cut back on the training due to other commitments.  Since I'd skip the Tuesday workout anyway after running a half, it made sense to time the race with a business trip.

I was fairly happy with the half.  On paper, it’s one of my slowest times ever, but despite that it was a good race – the conditions made the time irrelevant.  I was pretty happy with the effort I put in, and I feel good about the direction my fitness is going.

I also did some “continuing education” work this week.  I took Wednesday afternoon off from work and indulged in a personal training session focused on identifying issues with my squat.  Why is this relevant to running?  Because the flaws in my squat are essentially the same flaws in my running gait.   After doing an eval, Julie showed me several moves I’ll be incorporating, including the "RKC plank,"squatting with a band around my knees to promote proper form, and more lateral work (side steps, side lunges, etc). 

(and yes, the astute reader will note that on the Wednesday before a Saturday half-marathon I did a hard running workout followed by a personal trainer session focused on squatting.  Absolutely, I would have never done either so close to the race if the half had been a goal race.  But since it wasn’t, and I cared more about the act of racing than the end result, I went ahead.  I don’t think it affected my performance that much anyway)

Similarly, on Saturday (post race and defrosting) I attended a “yoga therapeutics” seminar focused on foot and ankles.   The first part was just a quick walkthrough the basic structures of the foot/ankle – given my history of injury, I’m very familiar with this stuff, to the point where it was a bit disconcerting to realize that not everyone knows that the post tib is on the medial side and the peroneal is on the lateral side, or that there is more than one calf muscle (heck, there were people who didn't know what the metatarsals were - which is kinda mindboggling to me - but then again, these weren't runners).  The latter half of the seminar focused on therapeutic exercises for the ankle, including some yoga poses with a tennis ball under the heel that were pretty cool (basically, that’s it – do warrior one and two with a tennis ball under your heel and note how it changes your stability).

As I noted, I’m in Tampa for much of this week.  I’ll fit in what I can, and hopefully be back on the track in Northern Virginia on Friday.

Dailies

Monday:   Yoga, some upperbody strengthwork and injury prevention work, and 3 "miles" easy pool-running; foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  Workout was cancelled, so ran 12 miles very easy (8:35 pace) a bit later in the morning (huge thanks to Arlington Country for clearing the trails so quickly). Foam rolling in afternoon.

Wednesday: 9.5 miles, including a workout under the Whitehurst freeway of 4 repeats of a loop around 1300-1350 in distance (each rep was bit over 5 minutes) with 2 minute recovery.  Followed with some injury prevention work and 1100 yards easy swimming.  Personal training session and sports massage in afternoon.

Thursday:   7.5 miles very easy (9:03), plus some drills and strides.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  Off, except for some injury prevention work and foam rolling.

Saturday:   2 mile warm-up and then a half-marathon in 1:32:07.  Yoga therapeutics seminar in the afternoon; foam rolling at night.

Sunday:  In the morning, 2900 yards of swimming, including a lot of drills.  Yoga and foam rolling in the afternoon.