Hi everyone! I posted in these threads years ago but fell out as I got injured. (Torn Achilles in late 2016.) I'm finally back to running and building some fitness again. I've been reading everyone else's posts and feeling so inspired that I can't resist jumping in. Will post my training this last week and try to find time for comments a little later in this week.
Some real quick background: I got into running after grad school. My big goal is to break 2:30 in the marathon. I ran 2:33 in 2015 for my fourth marathon. Looked like I had a shot at scaring 2:30 in Chicago in 2016 until some hip problems forced me to pull out. I PB'd in the 5k (15:55) and half (1:12:01) from April-June of that year. Then I got injured. Just as I was fixing my hip problems, I tore my Achilles tendon on an easy run. It was a long road back, made longer by own impatience driving me to hop back in too early. But finally now I've had eight good months of training and I'm starting to feel somewhat like my old self again. I'm 31 now, so I think I've least got a chance of hitting my goal. I know I won't set any PBs this year, but I'm going to run a fall marathon (Victoria) and then keep building my fitness over the winter. Hopefully I'll be ready to at least sniff my PBs next year. But that's getting ahead of myself. Goal number one is always to enjoy myself and appreciate the ride.
Anyway, here's what I got up to last week:
M: 10k (am) recovery, 18k(pm) recovery with drills
T: 10k(am) recovery, 18k(pm) with strides
W: Workout. 20 minute tempo (just managed to hit 6k), then 5x(400m-200m) hill sprints. 22k total.
Th: 10k(am) recovery, 18k(pm) recovery with drills
F: Off
S: Workout. 7x3k@MP, 3 mins recovery. Goal MP is 3:40/k, so goal here was 11 mins per rep. Splits: 10:56, 10:57, 10:49, 10:56, 10:56, 11:01, 10:48. Weather cooler than recently, which helped. 30k total.
S: My coach prescribed 2 hours slow and then a half hour at marathon effort. Two hours were indeed slow. Surprised myself by running 3:35/k for the marathon half hour, though most of that was on a track. Wasn't totally sure the GPS in my watch was behaving itself, to be honest. Legs felt like butts but I was running on a 350m track and way too tired to do the mental math to figure out if the watch was accurate. What the heck, I'll take it.
168k total on the week. All in all I was very pleased with this. Saturday and Sunday both went as well as could be hoped, due in no small part to slightly cooler weather than weeks previous. This week was the final of my first three-week chunk of running 100 MPW since 2016. I'm on a recovery week next, then going for another three-week shot of 100 MPW. It's been hard but enjoyable so far. Looking forward to the next round.