Wednesday, April 20, 2011

BR100 Training - Week 15

Half way. Half way there and finally feeling GOOD! There was running and more this week. My long run has reappeared as well as some mid-week runs including speedwork. And in addition to the miles I began a weekly meeting with a personal trainer for some strength training. Stuff I have the ability to do at home (in the basement) but never will. Getting out in a real gym with someone telling me what to do next makes the difference.

I'm relieved to be running pain free and to be able to get my mileage back up somewhere near where it needs to be. In response to a question I recieved regarding weekday mileage VS long weekend runs: my mileage is low on both counts. The plan I was hoping to follow calls for more mileage during the week than I'm doing, with runs T,W,T. Monday and Friday are rest days. I'm good at running one long day each weekend but the plan calls for long runs both days. My problems are time, motivation, and rest. I don't have enough time to do everything I need to do as it is, let alone running one more day during the week and both days on the weekend. I also suffer from lack of motivation from time to time that I can't shake. I'm hoping to have kicked that now that I'm healthy again. The rest is self-explanatory. There was a time when I couldn't run back-to-back days. I can, and do, now, but with mileage creeping higher I worry about over-training. There is an old addage: It's better to be under-trained than over-trained. Honestly though, if I was able to run more I would.

It was nice to be back on the track this week for some speedwork. There were quite a few people either recovering from a race or preparing for a race, so we took it easy with 3 miles worth of 100 meter striders. Wednesday I had a great upper body strength workout. Thursday was a nice run around the Hinckley trails. But the big day of the week belonged to Saturday, when I joined a few others for 27 miles on the Burning River course. We ran north from Station Road along the course to near Shadow Lake, where we turned around. This was all in the wind and rain that dogged us that day. The water crossings were all deeper on the way back. So much so that I didn't recognize them. Patches of blue sky and sunlight were few and far between but it was an enjoyable run.

So far Week 16 is plugging right along and I am pleased. We'll see how Easter affects my mileage this weekend.

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 6.12 mile run - Track
Wedesnday - Strength Training (PT)
Thursday - 11.22 mile trail run
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 27 mile trail run
Sunday - Strength Training

Weekly mileage = 44.34 miles

2 comments:

Dave said...

Wow - good for you D.

Thank you for the response. It appears we have the same workout schedule (and challenges!). I tend to run T,W,Th with rest days Monday and Friday. Saturday is long run day and Sunday is a wildcard.

My struggle has been feeling like I'm running far enough on Saturdays versus feeling like I'm beating my body up too much. Your adage about under-training vs. over-training is a big help. I think you're right. I've had good runs on less that what I thought I should have in preparation, and horrible runs when over-training left me weak either physically or mentally.

I'm glad to hear you're back on track.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good training. Listen to your body. Love, Texas