May 16, 2010
Weekly Training Summary (90.69 miles / 13:20:39)
3 days prior to this week I suffered my worst running injury in about 2 years. I haven’t had any pains since my knee back then. Oh well. Bound to happen. Nobody wants to get hurt but the silver lining to an overuse injury like this is some confirmation that you are doing about all you can workload-wise. So back off a bit then take another stab at it. You only get stronger (usually) from injuries. Reflecting back, I think it was a combination of a few things: 1) A windy day were I ran really fast pace with the wind shoving me. Broke a 5k PR on that run. 2) Next day, I went for 14 and was tired and got sloppy towards the end. Just pounded it out. 3) I was still sore there from Boston although I didn’t feel it. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that bad. Made me look like I had a bad limp when walking around town but I could run on it pretty well. Better now than later.
Throughout the week, I kept trying to ramp back up. Went to 2-fers to try and keep the mileage up but not allow a long session of pounding the anterior tibalis into shreds. As long as I felt a tiny bit better the next AM, I pushed it up a notch. I also wanted to be sure I could come out and play at the TT so I was careful not to overdue it. These tradeoffs were made and I sacrificed the 100 mile week for it. I know that sounds dumb again…coming back from an injury to a 90+ mile week. Fuck it. I would be doubting myself all summer otherwise. It felt OK and I went with it. As I figure, I am going to break something at Leadville and have to run with it. A little pain threshold training does me good. I am so used to perfect conditions through sheer planning that I need to mix it up a bit more.
Mon - 5M / 5M
Tues - 7M
Wed - 8M / 7M
Thurs - 8M / 7M
Fri - 9M / Green TT
Sat - 11M
Sun - 16M
That’s the week that was. Not too shabby. I was hoping to post 400 for May but with the time off last week, I am not sure its going to happen. Its just a number anyway. I get hung up on it because it seems to be the only gauge of ultra training. Max miles. Max time. The answer is always more of both. Without the need for speedwork, I find myself just grinding out these medium runs everyday. I think its good. Some get a little more effort than others. All by feel. A 14-17 miler used to be a once a week occurrence. Now its called Monday - Friday. Got fairly used to 2 hours at a time in that week prior so splitting it into 2 runs per day this week felt like cheating. Really. I will probably try and alternate it in the coming weeks. A 2-fer then a single run of similar distance. There is something to be said for both types. One gives you a longer burn but the other tends to get you running fresh twice for an overall faster effort.
This week I plan to get to Sanitas and Green. Need to hit the hills again a bit more. I finally got to the point where I would rather spend the time running than driving down there. However, I need the hill time so whatcha gonna do. Also, feeling like doing some quality PR efforts as the snow finally melts off the trail and I can set some new baseline times for the biggest summer ever.
Pretty sure I will stop in and sign up for Bolder Boulder this week. AA wave has good company with JV in it now. Maybe I can give him a run for his money on some good old pavement. I usually like to race the Longmont Sunrise Stampede but it is the weekend before Lake City and I don’t think it would be a good idea. But still might. I don’t have to go all out. Maybe see how the injuries are progressing and how BB10K finishes up. I like running Longmont races. Hometown and all. Could even host a post-race thing if anyone dares travel into my territory for this.
OK, screw you in advance. Graph time. I swear I haven’t looked at this thing in about two weeks. Just doesn’t matter too much to me right now. Going off feel and energy levels. However, its good to get a visual indication of how your training is ramping or declining when you are forced to take a step back like these past two weeks.
The good news is that CTL (fitness) is -1 of my peak of the year. Means that I have been holding on to it nicely through this rough patch. Gives me some confidence that I am as fit as I was going into Boston. I don’t know about you but post-race I go into denial about getting fat, lazy, slow, etc. “I couldn’t run that pace again if you paid me”, I often think. ATL is way down — that’s fatigue. I do feel some but its mostly because of the shin/ankle. And my right side is compensating for it by carrying more weight around. So both aren’t in tip top right now. So this makes some sense. TSB hanging at -13. Hope to drop that even further this week.
So people keep reminding me that Lake City is less than 4 weeks out. SHIT! Ah, not too panicked I suppose. Just more shaky because I haven’t run an ultra in nearly 21 months and I want a great comeback debut. However, I still have my mind set of making it a great training exercise where I nail the nutrition and leave the day thinking…yeah, I could run another 50 if I did X, Y, and Z. However, some part of me and a few others (like The Oracle) have suggested that I am in good enough shape that I should be racing this thing. It crosses my mind. LT100 is 2 months later. I have plenty of time to recover, I think. But I hope get big miles in during July so I don’t want to jeopardize that. Anyway, that’s what’s bouncing around in my head this week.
