Week of 03/23/2008 - 03/29/2008 (Base Week 2)

The first week of somewhat structured training has come and gone, and while I feel a bit worse for the wear, I'm thinking that running semi-regularly makes me a happier person.

Tentatively, each week will follow an adaptation of the Meinhold TP for the Chronically Injured format:

Sunday - Long run (currently starting at 65-ish minutes, hopefully building to 90 before XC 2008)
Monday - Off. Shots.
Tuesday - Upper threshold tempo (currently 1 x Arroyo Tempo Loop, hopefully build to 3 or 4)
Wednesday - Recovery jog
Thursday - Moderate base run
Friday - Off. Shots.
Saturday - Currently random base run, eventually lower threshold steady state.

My biggest quibble about how this is set up is the Saturday workout. I'm operating on the hypothesis that the weekly long run should be at an easy but not slovenly pace, meaning that the 3 training elements are concentrated within Sat - Tues, and then you have 3 nondescript days in a row Wed-Fri. I considered swapping Saturday and Thursday, but Peter says that you get the most out of your uptempo days if they are the days immediately following the rest days. I guess this will be a matter for further investigation...

Sunday 03/23: 1:04:35, RB to Devil's gate, then to yellow gate at JPL, then back around the other side of the RB. I really like that ~1 mile stretch before you get to the yellow gate. Woke up at 8 am, but was still warmer than I would have liked. Felt weak and dehydrated for the first 20 minutes, and struggled up that hill to get past Devil's gate. Started feeling better over the next 20 minutes, and then much better in the last 20 minutes, so I was able to pick it up a little bit towards the end. Definitely cognisant of the accumulated fatigue from the past week, did not feel fresh and easy like last Sunday.

Monday 03/24: Off. Shot day. Felt inordinately sore. Unclear why, but it started Sunday afternoon and has persisted. Argh.

Tuesday 03/25: 42:15, 3 x Arroyo Tempo Loop, per usual in 14:36, 11:48, 14:30 plus jog back to car. Slowly chipping away at those lap times... felt really good today, from a musculature standpoint. Mystery soreness was completely gone this morning, leaving fresh and happy legs. HR is down to desirable levels (145-155 for the jog laps and 185 for the tempo lap). Breathing is still the weakest link.

Also, L shoe has begun to rub unpleasantly across the end of my metatarsals, kind of aggravating the general area around the bad toe. This was happening a little bit towards the end of Sunday's run, but was getting really bad on the third lap. Very consterning, probably will try different shoes tomorrow :(.

Wednesday 03/26: 44:34, Monterrey to bridge loop. Gah, I'm really feeling averse to this route lately. Also, today's was the third one in a row where the pace has been unsatisfactory, even for a recovery run... starting to piss me off.

On another note, breaking out the last pair of Saucony Triumph 3's solved the foot irritation problem. Unfortunately, I discovered that I actually really liked the Gel Nimbus, save for the feature where it rubs over the top of my foot. Aasics are just way too narrow for my feet, seeing as the pair I have are already the wide versions. Ugh. But they're really comfortable and minimalist with not a lot of bulk to the shoe, which I really like. The old Triumphs felt stiff and bulky in comparison, but part of that is probably just that they haven't been broken in. I'm going to have to revisit this whole shoe buying thing this weekend.

Thursday 03/27: 50:09, California to Salvia Canyon like last week. Really enjoy this route. Thursday mornings also seem to be this perfect temperature where one is a bit too cold for the first 5 minutes, and then just right. Felt pretty good, faster towards the end.

Friday 03/28: Off, shot day. Felt pretty crappy due to having stayed up late to do taxes before the TurboTax rates went up... booo taxes.

Saturday 03/29: 40:23, Monterrey to bridge. Woke up late, but fortunately it was cloudy out so it hadn't already become 80 degrees out. Still felt too warm, but this week I felt well enough to do a moderate progression run. It's really like pulling teeth these days to run outside of the comfort zone. I can't tell if it's because I'm really sold on the low HR training thing, or if it's because my body can't remember any other paces.

I started with about 10 minutes of comfortable running, then picked up the pace over the next 15 minutes, and then finished with 15 minutes at a few ticks under tempo pace. The middle segment felt the worst, due to slight uphill. Legs felt pretty good, so tried to focus on keeping good form and even effort, but mind kept wandering to how this state just did not feel as good as the easy runs, and if this indicates extremely poor fitness and whether I was taxing my balky body inordinately with this second uptempo run. At any rate, all was survived to wrap up this second week.


Target Training this week: 4 hours
Actual Training: 4:01:56

Consternation Index: Moderate
(Markkimarkkonen, "Consternment" is not a word, according to dictionary.com)