This week was 57 miles of running, 30 "miles" of pool-running and 3000 yards of swimming -- training log is here.
My second week of marathon training. This week, I added the evening pool-running doubles in full force. In a change from last year, where I ramped up the evening doubles gradually, I decided to add them all in at once. That's four extra evenings of pool-running, which adds up to an additional 12+ "miles" of pool-running per week.
While 12+ miles (aka 2 hours) is a decent amount of additional work, I also know that recovery from pool-running is different from that for land running. For that reason, I don't think this bump is as risky as adding the equivalent mileage on land. It's certainly not the same injury risk, and I don't think it's as risky from an overtraining standpoint either. We shall see. If I feel like it's too much, I can always back off and ramp up more slowly.
(How will I know if it's too much? My classic warning sign is sleep - if I have difficulty falling asleep on two consecutive nights, I'm starting to overreach, and it's time to back off.)
In other news (that is the same old news) we got blasted by some tough DC heat and humidity this week. The humidity was especially rough on Friday morning (dew point of 75 - tough for hill repeats). Despite that, the hill workout went better than last week's. I switched back to Advair 250/50 for my asthma, and it's pretty clear that I need to stay on that dose.
I also got lax on controlling my easy runs this week, and it showed in my Sunday long run (went OK, but I had to work harder than I would like). It's really hard to pull back on the easy runs as much as I personally need to when I'm running with others. Especially when I want to chat with people who are running at a pace that is totally reasonable for them, but just slightly faster than my preferred pace. And especially when the "too fast for me" easy pace is still substantially slower than what one would predict based on my race times, and may look "fine" to others. (Saturday run - I'm looking at you).
But the truth is that we're all experiments of one. And for me personally, I need to ride the brakes hardcore on the days I'm not running hard, so that I can get what I need from the hard days. Especially when I'm also a) dealing with DC heat/humidity and b) bumping up the training volume. Duly noted.
Dailies
Monday: In the morning, foam rolling, yoga and 7 "miles" pool-running. 3 "miles" pool-running in the evening.
Tuesday: 10 miles, including a track workout of 2x1600, 2x800 in 6:07, 5:57, 2:55, 2:51. Also did injury prevention work at the gym and 1250 yards of recovery swimming. Foam-rolling at night.
Wednesday: 8 miles very easy to yoga (8:55), yoga, and then 4 miles very easy (8:58). 4 "miles" pool-running and foam rolling in the evening.
Thursday: In the morning, upper body weights and core followed by foam rolling and 10 "miles" pool-running. Another 2 "miles" of pool-running at night.
Friday: 10 miles, including 6 hill repeats (~500m up, then 200m jog, 100m stride, and 100m jog down to base of hill). Followed with injury prevention work and 1100 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.
Saturday: 10 miles easy (8:46) followed by drills and four strides, and upper body weights and core. Foam rolling and 4 "miles" pool-running in afternoon.
Sunday: 14 miles progressive, split as first 4 at 9:17 pace, next 5 at 7:44, last 5 at 7:01. Followed with injury prevention work and 650 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling in afternoon.
Inspiring, motivating, informative, and well-written. I always look forward to reading your weekly post. Thanks for sharing with us!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! That means a lot!
ReplyDeleteHello! I wasn't sure how to privately message you, but I was reading some forums last night online about hamstring tendinopathy and PRP and came across a few posts by you. Hope this isn't too creepy I'm contacting you!! I've been dealing with hamstring tendinopathy for the past year and just today decided to schedule a PRP injection for Aug 3. It's a hard decision because it's so expensive ($1000 a shot for me). I was just wondering if you had any advice, especially since it seems you are doing so well now. My email is madelynmacejik@gmail.com if that's easier. Hope to hear from you!
ReplyDeleteHi - I'll send you a private email also. My biggest bits of advice:
ReplyDelete1) PRP will heal the injury, but not the underlying cause. If you don't dedicate a lot of effort to figuring out the cause of your injury (likely a gait issue) and correct it, you'll end up in the same place as you were PRP.
2) for me, I wasted too much time on massage and stretching of my hamstring (where the pain was) when I should have been spending time stretching and massaging my hip flexors and quads (which were tight, and pulling me out of alignment, and causing the hamstring issues). The cause of your injury isn't necessarily where the pain is.
3) things will hurt when you return to running. And it's frustrating, but it's part of bringing the tissue back into use. If you try only to run when you're painfree, you'll never come back. I found it helpful to place a numeric value on my pain each day. If the pain was decreasing with the same volume of work, or holding steady as I increased the volume, I was doing something right. If the pain was worsening, then I needed to back off. The advice of a PT can be really helpful here - I saw mine regularly just so he could handhold and reassure me that it hurt but was getting better.