This week was 52 miles of running, 16 "miles" of pool-running, and 4000 yards of swimming. Training log is here.
I've been focusing primarily on hill repeats since coming off of my break. There's a reason for that, and it's not to practice hills. Rather, I could tell that when I started running after my break, my gait was very quad-dominated. I was shuffling, with a short stride and lacking power from behind. I can't run my fastest like that, and I wanted to correct that before starting to seriously train again, so that I didn't layer fitness over bad form and calcify bad habits.
Hills encourage me to run with good form, so I did those, starting with 60-70 second hill repeats, in Georgetown and then shifting over to Iwo Jima hill repeats (2 minutes up, 90 second recovery, 30 second downhill stride, 60 second recovery).
My coach has traditionally had our entire team do Iwo Jima repeats twice a year for 6 weeks, but abandoned the workout due to injury concerns after the hill was repaved in concrete. Since I handled the workout on concrete just fine this summer, and since my injuries have historically come from soft shifting surfaces and instability, not hard surfaces and impact, I decided to stick with the Iwo Jima hill workouts solo until I felt like I had my form back.
On Tuesday, I hit that magic point - I felt noticeably different from just a few weeks before. Much much better - I was powering up the hills and floating down them. So that was my cue to conclude the hill work and return to the track and serious training, starting with a Friday morning tempo.
So now I'm back in the metaphorical saddle. My coach and I agreed on a set of races for the next few months. In February, I'll run the NYRR Gridiron 4 Miler in New York and the Gasparilla 8K in Tampa (one or both of these may end up being combined work/personal trips). In March, I'll do the Shamrock Half-Marathon, followed by Cherry Blossom in April and Broad Street in May. I'll also try to fit a fast 5K or two in there, once I'm fit enough to run well at that distance.
Dailies:
I've been focusing primarily on hill repeats since coming off of my break. There's a reason for that, and it's not to practice hills. Rather, I could tell that when I started running after my break, my gait was very quad-dominated. I was shuffling, with a short stride and lacking power from behind. I can't run my fastest like that, and I wanted to correct that before starting to seriously train again, so that I didn't layer fitness over bad form and calcify bad habits.
Hills encourage me to run with good form, so I did those, starting with 60-70 second hill repeats, in Georgetown and then shifting over to Iwo Jima hill repeats (2 minutes up, 90 second recovery, 30 second downhill stride, 60 second recovery).
My coach has traditionally had our entire team do Iwo Jima repeats twice a year for 6 weeks, but abandoned the workout due to injury concerns after the hill was repaved in concrete. Since I handled the workout on concrete just fine this summer, and since my injuries have historically come from soft shifting surfaces and instability, not hard surfaces and impact, I decided to stick with the Iwo Jima hill workouts solo until I felt like I had my form back.
On the way up, I focused on power - trying to lengthen my stride by powering off my glutes. For the downhill 30 second stride, my form cues were to run tall and gently and light - gliding, not pounding. For both, I made a point of not worrying about the absolute speed of the workout - these were primarily about resetting and re-wiring my form, and doing the workout correctly was much more important than doing it fast. In a way, it was nice that I did each hill workout solo - there was no pressure to hang with a group or do anything except focus on my own form.
On Tuesday, I hit that magic point - I felt noticeably different from just a few weeks before. Much much better - I was powering up the hills and floating down them. So that was my cue to conclude the hill work and return to the track and serious training, starting with a Friday morning tempo.
So now I'm back in the metaphorical saddle. My coach and I agreed on a set of races for the next few months. In February, I'll run the NYRR Gridiron 4 Miler in New York and the Gasparilla 8K in Tampa (one or both of these may end up being combined work/personal trips). In March, I'll do the Shamrock Half-Marathon, followed by Cherry Blossom in April and Broad Street in May. I'll also try to fit a fast 5K or two in there, once I'm fit enough to run well at that distance.
Dailies:
Monday: Yoga and 8 "miles" pool-running.
Tuesday: 12 miles, including 8 Iwo Jima hill repeats (~2 minutes up; ~90 second recovery; ~30 second stride; ~60 second jog to bottom). Also leg-strengthwork/injury prevention work and 1000 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.
Wednesday: 8 miles very easy (9:24) to yoga, yoga, and then another 4 miles very easy (8:59), plus drills/strides. Foam rolling at night.
Thursday: Upper body weights/core and 8 "miles" pool-running. Foam rolling at night.
Friday: 12 miles, including a 4 mile tempo on the track in 26:28 (6:42/6:40/6:38/6:28). Also leg-strengthwork/injury prevention work and 1000 yards recovery swimming. Foam rolling at night.
Saturday: 10.5 miles very easy (8:44) to yoga, drills/strides, yoga, and then another 5.5 miles very easy (8:40). Foam rolling at night. (added in extra easy mileage today in anticipation of not running on Sunday due to impending snow storm).
Sunday: Upper body weights/core and 2000 yards of swimming. Foam rolling at night.
I think our lack of hills here really allows me to fall into that quad-dominated stride trap. Once my high hamstring tendon is fully healed, I'll have to make sure I'm working in hill repeats, even if they're just a moderate pace (right now uphill aggravates the attachment, so I'll wait a little while).
ReplyDelete