What can I say? This week didn't really live up to my expectations. I was really hoping my mileage would be a bit higher (mid-upper 70s). I did have some pretty good workouts, including a great Long Run, but the consistency that I wanted just wasn't there. It seemed that I would have a pretty good day and then the next day would be absolute crap. This was mostly due to some pain that I mentioned experiencing last Saturday. It was my popliteal tendon, which is right behind the knee, connecting my calf and hamstring. It was pretty tight and sore, and felt like it was just "catching" as I ran. I definitely did way too much on it Sunday, which made the rest of my week inconsistent.
We had team practice Mon, Wed, Thurs. Here are the deets:
Sunday - 14 mile Long Run in 1:28:58 (6:21/mi). About 38 degrees and raining. My best Long Run pace ever, and it was definitely at the right effort, as I didn't even feel spent afterwards. Splits: 1 - 6:32, 2 - 6:29, 3 - 6:32, 4 - 6:22, 5 - 6:23, 6 - 6:19, 7 - 6:27, 8 - 6:23, 9 - 6:19, 10 - 6:18, 11 - 6:16, 12 - 6:15, 13 - 6:11, 14 - 6:05. So obviously the splits were very good, and I had a significant negative split. The question is whether I should have even done this long run though, as my popliteal tendon/muscle (right behind the knee, connecting the calf and hamstring) was hurting like I mentioned on Saturday. Right from the start I could feel it, and it was catching every few strides. Ended up toughing it out, but that's obviously never the best decision with injuries like this.
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| Midway through Sunday's Long Run |
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| Last couple of miles, as the rain let up some |
Monday - Planned on an easy 9 or 10mi with strides. Did an easy 6.5 mile run/limp, and couldn't do the strides. Popliteal tendon still hurting, and I probably should have went even shorter, but I was in the middle of the country by the time it was catching really bad and didn't really have a choice but to finish up the run.
Tuesday - Off. When I got home from school I was still on the fence about whether I was going to give the leg a rest or test it out, but my dad didn't want me to even run, so he had a big meal made for me to persuade me not to even run. Obviously I didn't want to take the day off, but I can't keep making this worse. I figure that if I miss a few easy days this week it's not a big deal, the days I can run this week I want to be my quality days.
Wednesday - 8 miles, 51:09 (6:23/mi): First 15min warmup (6:33, 6:37, little extra), then 11x1min on/2min off, couple minute cooldown. The "on" portions were at about 5k effort, the "off"'s were at about 6:30/mi. I had planned on doing 10, but did 11 because I had to take a quick pit stop during one, ha. First few were on the golf course, then on the roads. Afterwards, got back to the track for 10x200 relaxed, with full recovery. Still, these were very slow. I won't put all the splits up, but the legs just aren't moving yet. I tried to run about 3200m pace to mile pace feel. First 5 were mid 37s, next 4 were mid 36s, last one was 35.8. Didn't get down to mile PR pace, but they felt pretty relaxed for the most part. Wore my new Streak XC 2s for the last 8. They felt pretty good, but might be a little big. Popliteal tendon wasn't catching much, but lower hamstring was getting pretty tight. (Total 10mi)
Thursday - 45:00 easy with most of it on the golf course. Form felt off, and tendon was still "catching". I know I was compensating for the pain some, but I kept the overall volume and intensity down today. (~6.5 mi)
Friday - 2.55mi warmup in 17:12 (6:45/mi), strides, 25 minute tempo covering 4.3 miles (5:48/mi), 2 mile cooldown in 14:21 (7:10/mi). Alright tempo, nothing great, but the effort was right. It was a little windy out as well. Form felt a little off and tendon was catching some on the cooldown, so I kept it short and slow. (9 mi total)
Saturday - AM: 5 miles easy (~35min) on Barn School Road. Forgot watch on the way out there, so I had to estimate. Tendon was catching midway through and giving me some trouble. Had to stop a few times to stretch it. Scratched the planned hill sprints, as that would have been stupid to do.
PM: Tried an easy 3mi, which went surprisingly better than this morning. I did a ton of different stretches and rolling out before, which probably helped. Normally would have went 5 again tonight, but I'm hoping for a long run tomorrow and don't want to aggravate the tendon more. Cycled 15 minutes steady on the stationary bike afterwards to get in a bit extra aerobic activity.
Total: 54 miles, and a bit of cycling. Definitely not what I had hoped for this week, but I got in all of my quality stuff just fine, so I'm happy about that. Had my best long run ever, a solid tempo, some rhythm 200s to get the legs moving a bit more, and an alright fartlek. I still made advancements this week, just didn't hit the mileage.
Side note on the mileage: At this point, I'm not too concerned with not running huge miles, or not setting weekly mileage records. Especially if that comes at the cost of me getting more nagging injuries. Because as I've said before, I'm a bit more injury prone in the winter months. I'm not stressing over it too much because I know that I've got a great aerobic foundation. With this summer's consistency (about 6-8 weeks over 70 miles), I've got a pretty big base to build off of. Generally, year by year, I make big gains in mileage. I ran my first week over 70 miles my sophomore year, and although I haven't gotten much higher, I've had a ton more weeks at or above that amount. And compared to then, I'm way stronger aerobically. The quality of my mileage shows, as my long run pace has continued to improve, as well as my tempo run pace, among other things. I feel that I've got a great foundation right now, and some of the work that I put in this summer I haven't even seen all of the benefits from. I plan on keeping the miles at 60-75 for quite a few more weeks, but not making huge advancements in mileage this winter isn't that big of a deal, and shouldn't be my top priority. There isn't anything magical about getting over 80 miles/week. Especially when that wouldn't have been the smartest thing for me to do this winter given the circumstances. I've got an aerobic foundation that most high schoolers don't have, and hopefully I'll start putting that to use. My next focus is just going to be adding more quality, getting the tempo pace down over the next few weeks and spend more time at that pace. Once I get to the more specific training, I should be able to really see some big gains.
I'll be opening up my track season this next Saturday (March 5th) at the Illinois College Inviational in Jacksonville,IL. I'll be running the mile there. I'm not hoping for anything too big yet, just try to accustom the legs to what kind of pace they'll need to be running this spring. I don't know really what to expect since I haven't really done anything specific to mile type speed yet. It'll definitely be fun though, and I'm excited!
Have a good week, everyone!
-John
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