Rest is an important part of exercise

I took a couple of days off.

My hips hurt, my legs felt tired and during my last few runs I’ve had little pains show up.  Both Achilles tendons have felt hot or tight here and there.  My glutes, or at least that tendon at the top of the hamstring, definitely have a little inflammation thing going.  With the intensity of my training the last two months along with all the heavy work I’ve been doing around the house on nights and weekends had taken its toll.

None of this is anything I couldn’t ignore and keep going.  I’m sure I could cut my pace back quite a bit on my easy days, still keep my mileage up, and heal up just fine, but these are things I shouldn’t ignore.

My coach during my “comeback”, Robin, once told me that during the peak times of her training she actually set her schedule over a two week period as opposed to weekly.  That way she could keep speed workouts at least ten days apart to allow her body time to fully recover and adapt.  I’ve really fought that advice.  I keep laying stuff out by the week and definitely squeeze those HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) runs closer than seven days apart.  I’ve had some weeks when I did two of those workouts.  I’m pretty sure I do that because I never put them that far apart when I was 18, so why should I now?

Because I’m 49, not 18, that’s why.

I’ve gotten much faster than I was in January, but I feel like I’m struggling now as opposed to feeling stronger.  Not the way I should be feeling with less than two weeks to my first competition.

So I took these two days to just rest the legs and joints, and it’s time to lay out my training to get me through May, June and July anyways.  I’m going to try and pay more attention to the spacing of my workouts and force myself to go easier on my “easy” days.   The trick is figuring out what to do on the days that I’m not planning anything intense.

I’ve found precious little that talks about anything other than specific workouts that will build endurance, speed or stamina.  There’s plenty out there on workout ideas and plans, but the workouts always add up to something like 10 to 15 miles of running and then they just toss in a weekly mileage total of 30 to 40 with no explanation of how you get there.  A couple of ten mile runs? Four 5 mile runs?  What?

I do have one good source, 10K & 5K Running, Training, & Racing: The Running Pyramid by David Holt, and he actually lays out nice schedules that show what to do each week for about a year in order to peak for a one month period for those types of events.  That’s helpful.  He only runs four days a week, but other folks I read suggest five days a week.  I think I'm finding out that I should stick to four ...

So I've had two days off and tomorrow morning I get on the track again to do a pyramid workout.  400, 800, 1200, 800, 400.  This will help with my stamina (endurance at speed) since that's where I feel the weakest right now.  After that I'll have a couple of fartlek runs, then real easy to nothing  by the middle of next week.

Sunday morning is the 800.

And I'll be wearing these!!

 

I was not in the market for racing spikes, I have a pair and seriously how many does an old guy with this hobby need?, but I had won an award from GM for work and that came with a gift card.  Just a couple of days after getting the award notification I got an email from a member of our track team and these babies were on sale for $20!!  So I added two more pairs that were on sale and am donating my two older pairs to the thrift store in Manteo.

Here are the other two pairs.  One for shorter, faster training runs and 10K or longer races...

and the others for longer training runs.

Now to just lay out what all those runs will be over the summer....