Things do not always go as planned and you have to "Adapt, improvise, overcome"
(quote from Heartbreak Hill, 1986, yes I'm getting old). Last week
was a mixed bag of good and really bad. When things go really bad you
question what you are doing, you ask yourself what did you doing wrong,
and how do you recover, change, and get back on track.
Some
people have coaches that do all that analyzing and worrying for them.
Since I coach myself I get to worry and analyze but get advice
from people who are impartial and removed and who can see things more
clearly than myself being in the moment. One thing you have to watch
out for is changing course drastically, sometimes its still all about
having faith in the plan you had laid out. This is why I have had a
hard time with coaches, my willingness to put 100% of my faith in them
and truly let them lead me down the path. I think there are excellent
coaches out there, but I\'m not a professional runner and this is still
just my hobby not my career.
You
have to keep things in perspective. When all this training and focus
is over and I run or don't run a good race that will not take away
from the joy and relief at the finish line when my kids will come
running up and give me a hug and say "daddy 'o". Although they
might follow that up with a question like "why were you so far behind
the winner". Young kids are priceless aren't they...totally
unfiltered.
Back to what went well and what went really bad.
The good:
Tuesday
after a day of rest (only a 4 mile easy run) and no PC I finished a
good track session of 4x1200 reps with 1:30 recovery in 72 sec laps. I
was lucky it was cool in the morning, finally a speedwork day in the
mid 50s. It session didn\'t feel that bad either, it was all about
cranking it out. During the reps I would keep telemetry if I was
suffering, or just breathing/working very hard. Running hard is
something you have to get used to, sometimes you mix up suffering with
hard effort. I usually equate suffering as I\'m in over my head and
hard workout is maintainable. The previous week in 65+ weather I as
barely making 73 sec laps. A little more rest and cooler weather
really made a difference. I was very excited by this change in weather
and a solid workout to see what it would bring later in the week during
my MP run.
As
I had indicated last week I was planning on increasing the intensity of
my PC workouts over the final 3 weeks of the high volume phase. I
decided to try 20 min sessions at 110+ rpm with a little more
resistance. I was very tired Monday and Tuesday and fell asleep with
the kids and I missed the Tuesday PC workout. Wednesday I tried to
make it up by doing a hard 20 min PC at 110+ RPM before my 17 mile
run. Later that night I did another 40 min at higher resistance with
some at over 110 RPM. Thursday I wasn\'t supposed to do any PC and
only the 12 mile run. Being obsessed I did another 20 min hard 110+
rpm PC workout in the morning after the 12 mile run. The reason I say
110+ is that over 110 I\'m all over the place. I average about 114RPM
but fluctuate from a low of 110 up to 120RPM depending on how much
focus I\'m keeping. My HR during these 20 min hard sessions peaks out
about 120 BPM compared to the easy PC days at 100 RPM my HR is under
100 BPM.
Its
interesting to note that 100RPM now seems normal, and 90 slow. I can
usually feel comfortable over 100RPM. The only day where 100rpm
seems a tad uncomfortable is is Sundays after all the running for the
week is completed and I have to do the final 40 min PC workout of the
week. My legs are usually fried by then.
The bad:
You
can see already where this is heading before I even start writing.
Am I special and able to handle all this increased work load on top of
all the things I was already doing. NO...but being in the moment I
underestimated the effect the increased PC intensity would have on my
running. This is all an experiment, "Adapt, improvise, overcome".
For
the Friday MP run the weather did not cooperate. In the morning it
was 65+ deg with 90+% humidity, fall isn't quite here yet. I carried
some water with me the first 3 miles due to the heat. I started
out putting down the standard starting 5:20 miles. By mile 5 my spilt
was a couple seconds off what I had done last week and I could feel the
legs tiring. Cardiovascularly I was doing fine but the legs were
starting to feel heavy. Mile 6 and 7 both were just a couple seconds
off what I had done last week but still under target pace.
You
can always feel the crash coming well before it actually happens. Its
the little feelings in the body that don't seem quite right.
Mile
8 has a little uphill and I was interested to see how bad that was
going to feel. It was bad. I dropped a 5:30 mile and I knew it was
all over because my legs would not turn over at all, they felt like
lead. Being off pace at only mile 8 and fighting it you know
your pretty much done. Mile 9 and 10 went down with 5:38 and 5:48
respectively and I threw in the towel at mile 10 instead of continuing
to mile 12 as planned.
It was a bad day. I have only had a
couple such sessions that were that bad. Both of which occurred when I
had a sinus infection and was sick. This time there was no sinus
infection but I did loose 4 lbs of water weight during my 10 miles
because of the heat which is not good.
I believe
now that the reason for such a bad MP run was the increased intensity
of the PC sessions the preceding days totally fried my hip flexors. It
looks like with all the volume of training I'm putting in the MP run
is more susceptible to the fatigue.
In
retrospect it is interesting how much of an impact tired hip
flexors had on my MP workout. The downside is that it messed up my
confidence pretty bad and forced me to ask a lot of questions of my
training plan. Some people said get rid of doing the PC, some said
tone it down, some said don\'t worry about being fried now its 3 weeks
from now you should be concerned. Its all perspective and no right
answer. I know how fast I would be if I just stick to the normal
training I usually do. This is about upping the ante and trying
something above and beyond what I normaly do one last time before I
retire from trying to PR anymore at the marathon.
I
had many miles over the weekend to think about what to do next and how
to correct what I\'m doing wrong. My 24 mile run on Saturday actually
wasn\'t that bad compared to last week and considering the Friday MP
run it was way better than I expected. I had a solid last 6 miles of
the first 20 and nice jog the last 4. Then I was able to hop on the PC
for a 20 hard session later that morning before we headed out camping
with the kids. Sunday was about the same. I was fatigued during the
easy 15 miles but it was manageable with an easy 40 min of PC in the
evening.
Age: 35, Sex: Male, Height:5'3",racing wt: 119lbs, marathon PR: 2:20:54, Occupation: Full time Mechanical Engineer; Family: 2 children ages 2, 4
Background: Ran mediocore in high school. Transitioned to road bike racing in college and was 7th in the collegiate nationals road race in 1994. I graduated and quite bike racing and didn't do much for several years. In 1999 I took up running marathons recreationally with my wife as an excuse to travel. In 2003 I took up marathoning competitively.