Back to the beginning, yet again.
Sadly, its far too late for Carlsbad, but I'm back on my feet. No more advil, no more magic sock, no more treadmill. Just me and the Trial of Miles, miles of trials... I honestly feel a little bit out of sorts. Its so cold I can't sleep at night, my favorite, favorite trail has been washed out by debris from all of the windy weather. I don't even have a plan for this week. Where to put my hill run, whether to attempt any tempo work, will my newly healed ankle withstand a long run, and if so, which surface is better, flat but hard, or soft but uneven? So many choices, and you just won't know whether you made the right choice until you pick one and see.
I'm so happy to be running again, but I also feel lost and confused. I'm really disappointed about Carlsbad. I would have been so fast by now... if only.
Sunday 01/14: off. Hung over and sleep deprived... but how 'bout them Patriots!? Watch out Indy, cuz we are taking your homefield advantage by storm!!!!!
Monday 01/15: ~6.5 miles, 58 minutes shortened Upper Arroyo with the gals. So happy to run with the team :). First run back, great to see KB and Gina. Felt really cardiovascularly out of shape, BUT... no ankle pain! holy crap it feels so weird to not hurt.
Tuesday 01/16: 6.25 miles, 46:45 Huntington. Ran a solid steady state 7:30 pace base run. Felt really good muscularly, but the effects of 2 weeks off were very apparent by the last few miles... breathing a bit too hard for effort level. Also, SO FREAKING COLD... !!! now I remember why I used to run hard every day during wintertime at Bain... because at 6 am and 35 degrees, the faster you run, the sooner you can go the heck back inside. Seriously.
Wednesday 01/17: 7.3 miles, 58:14 Huntington from Palomar to El Molino. Thank goodness for g-maps. Fantastic easy run, felt great like I could run forever and forever. Kind of almost felt like me again. I used to be able to run 8:00 pace essentially forever, feeling easy and relaxed like walking. Gradual hill up El Molino was the best part. I miss the mountains and the trails.
Still feeling a little bit sore through the quads, not sure what this means for tomorrow's tempo work, will probably scale back to 2 x 2 mile or maybe the 4.4 mile Time Trial loop A. Expecting threshold pacing to be shot after 2 weeks off (~7 min/mile? ugh...).
Thursday 01/18: 8 miles, 2 x 2 mile with 20 minutes warm up and 21 minutes cool down. Finding the right (non offensive) words to describe this workout is hard, but the message to me was loud and clear, "congratulations, you suck!"
13:30 (6:42, 6:48), 2 min rest, 13:39 (6:50, 6:49) est. (erased one lap split by mistake) felt terrible. Quads were sore going in, couldn't get loosened up on the warmup. A little short of breath, just couldn't get the breathing settled, coughed a lot in the rest period. This is one of those things were I considered just pushing this workout off a day or maybe even a week but I didn't and it was the wrong choice.
On the upside, my ankle did not hurt at all, I managed the cooldown in the Nike Frees, with a tiny bit of soreness in the arches, but in a good way. I'm going to wait another week before I start freaking out, sometimes it takes a week or two to get back into things, so I don't know yet if this is like that, or if I've really done a significant amount of damage to my fitness. When you have workouts like this, the damage is really mostly psychological. I *feel* panic, I *feel* helpless, like I KNOW just a few short weeks ago I felt like I could run 6:35-40 pace forever and forever, and now I can't even do threshold repeats. I *feel* like I'll never get back to that place, even though I know that I can. I guess you just have to work through the crazy and keep training.
Friday 01/19: 5.2 miles, 43:01, recovery jogging up and down Orange Grove at night. Can't shake this soreness, esp. L quad, I guess its not used to pulling its own weight after I've favored the left leg for so long. Everything kind of feels like on verge of being strained... my body isn't handling this first week back as well as I expected. Need a day off, desperately.
Saturday 01/20: bikes, bikes, bikes! Woke up still sore, biking for aerobic maintenance. 38 miles, 2 hours 35 minutes Mt. Wilson up to Clear Creek with frosh boys. Kangway is a taskmaster, dragged Garrett and I along at a decent clip. Not as cold as expected, great ride. Track cycling World Cup with Peter, Will, Ruby--totally a bizarro parallel universe to a track meet. Weird, but so much fun!
Target Mileage: 40 Miles
Week Actual: 33.25 Miles
Last Week: 48.1 Miles (Treadmill)
Eeeearghhh... this is pathetic. Maybe with the bike/running mile conversion we can kinda say ~7 miles for Saturday and ~40 miles for the week? Hmmm... gotta do better next week. Feeling kind of like I'm getting sick also, meh.
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