[S]he Conquers Who Endures

3.41 mi @ 9:29 min/mi AP in 32:20

Cambridge Charles River route. Working out the cobwebs. I felt like I ran a marathon...or two.

1.36 mi @ 9:33 min/mi AP in 12:57

1.36 mi of trying hard not to toss my cookies and 1.36 mi of walking back wondering why I tried to run when I woke up with a stomach bug.

5.42 mi @ 9:49 min/mi AP in 53:12

FL trail run. The dirt/grass felt good. Twisted my left ankle 6 times, my right 0 times. Jumped over 2 snakes (1 dead one) and my legs were fatigued and shakey at the end. All-in-all a nice run.

4.21 mi @ 9:29 min/mi AP in 39:53

FL trail run. This was less technical than Sat, and no snake spotings, only spider crab dodging. Things felt okay. Hammies are still pretty tight.

3.09 mi @ 9:13 min/mi AP then 6 strides @ 8:54 (?), 6:01, 6:05, 5:30, 5:25, 5:48 paces

Charles River Cambridge dirt path as much as possible. My legs are not turning over, my cadence feels like it's 2. This first stride jolted my body but the last strides felt better. 3.88 mi total in 37:47 and finished up with 10 mins on the bike @ 90 rpm and then 10 mins light strength work.

15 min wu @ 1%, 8 min @ 2%, 6 min @ 3%, 4 min @ 4%, 2 min @ 5%, 12 min cd

Treadmill because I want to keep it soft and avoid downhills. I'm a nut and am hoping to make it through May babying the bones on soft surfaces since it takes a month for bone to remodel - wanna get past those 2 marathons unscathed. Inclines were at 8:41 min/mi pace, and I took 2 mins @ 0% and 9:31 min/mi for recoveries between incline intervals. 6.08 mi total in 55:00

4.78 mi @ 9:27 min/mi AP in 45:07

Trying this new thing called "recovery miles" where I where a HR monitor and try to keep my HR 74% max or less. Well, failed this time, hit 75% max average. Boo.

Charles River Cambridge dirt path as much as possible. My left hip flexor is tight and tender. Finished up with 10 mins light strength work.

Charles River Cambridge. 2 mile wu @ 9:36 min/mi AP then 10x200m with 200m recoveries then 2 mile cd @ 9:21 min/mi AP. 200s paces were: 7:26/7:03/7:07/7:24/7:28/7:05/7:08/7:14/6:51/6:59

It felt good to run faster again. I can tell my legs are still recovering because my wu and cd paces are soooo slow. :)

Finished up with 10 mins of core work.

8 easy miles along the Charles River in Boston. 8:56 min/mi AP (1:11:28)

This felt hard. I was probably pushing the pace too hard for recovering from B2B. It felt good to get the mileage in. I can't wait to recover and work on faster paces! Have to be patient...

5.03 mi recovery in Harold Parker State Park @ 10:09 min/mi AP. 

No snake or gator encounters on this one! 

5.01 mi recovery along the Charles River in Beantown. My ankles felt worked from yesterday. Legs are still dead post marathons so ditched the striders. 9:12 min/mi AP

2 mi wu then 5x3:00 @ 10k effort with 2:00 recoveries, 2 mi cd. 3:00s were at: 7:25, 7:14, 7:22, 7:20, 6:54 min/mi paces or 7:14 min/mi AP. My right foot is freaking me out. The top of it was extremely tight until the end of the warmup. Not sure if it's from wearing Danskos at work (they dig into the top of that foot) or from twisting that ankle on the trail run on Sunday.

5.4 recovery miles shooting for 9:30s hit 9:15s, opps. Top of right foot hurting this time until mile 2.8. Bummer, dude.

Flywheel to let the foot heal. No pain.

Bernard Lagat: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444032404578006274010745406

Lauren Fleshman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQffeQ5pmbA

Meb Keflezighi: http://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/how-meb-keflezighi-trained-to-win-the-boston-marathon

Greg McMillan: http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/articlePages/article/43

Recovery and Long-term thinking.

I've done it, I've finally convinced myself I need a FULL break.

A year ago I wasn't running because of a stress fracture that popped up out of nowhere. Yet I still found a way to crosstrain like a madwomen - waterjogging and biking like I was training for ironman. Pulling doubles ALMOST every day. Then I returned to running. I came within 40 sec of my half marathon PR off running for only 3 weeks. 

Then it hit the fan...all of it, and it hasn't been pretty since: severe fatigue; back spasms; right leg: stress reaction in foot, misalgined hip from walking boot, piriformis syndrome; left leg: strained quad. Don't get me wrong, I had some good runs since last summer, but probably no more than what I can count on my hands. 

Enter this blog. The beauty of it is, you can go back and read how you felt, how you REALLY felt, how you were training, what kind of sleep you were getting. I was not the fastest Summer 2012, but I felt the best and I was making the greatest improvements in my running. Why? I was crosstraining a ton more and I had just come off a 2.5 month hiatus from all working out, got really fat, and had a fire in me to take back my fitness.

Don't get me wrong, I have a strong desire to be fit and work hard at it every day. But I finally realized after reading/watching the links above it's been too hard for too long. Case in point, I still have not fully returned to running since my stress fracture A YEAR AGO, I did not feel recovered from workouts (even easy ones), my pace has not been improving as I have seen in the past (partially because everything hurts most of the time), and thanks to technology (Jawbone) I've finally accepted my sleep sucks (I lay in bed for 10 hours and sometimes will get only 7 hours, minimal quality). 

Onto my plan: 2 weeks off all workouts. If my sleeping has returned to somewhat normal by the end of the 2 weeks, then hit the weight room to build a solid foundation. Add Flywheel after one week of weights only. If all systems are a go, build back in running per Greg's plan in the link above. 

I really wanted to hit some fast 5ks this Summer; there's still time. But for now I will practice patience, and recover, recover, recover. Peace out, Running! I will miss you. You can show me how much you missed me with some PRs this Summer/Fall! 

Not running motivation of the day: http://phe800.blogspot.com/2014_05_01_archive.html