I was in a pretty tough place mentally and I was able to turn it around. After the long run on my birthday, I took off two days. Then I ran four days in a row. They were all short, one was at an upbeat tempo. But overall I was wasted. My ankle hurt, my legs didn’t want to go fast. Running wasn’t fun. I avoided my group runs with the HCTR club. This past week was more of the same. Two runs on Sunday where I could never get going. A good run with the HCTR group on Wed. night, but after that my ankle was completely shot.
I decided to take off seven days from running. I decided to cross-train by going to the gym and doing a variety of cardio equipment every day. It has been an amazing turn around. I feel refreshed. I can’t hardly wait to run with the group again this Wednesday and I’m planning my longest run ever for this Saturday morning (Halloween). It will be 19.5 miles on hilly trails between my house and the Hill of Life. It is a 6.5 miles loop. I’ll do it three time alternating directions.
I bought new shoes on Zappos today. I noticed that they finally had a pair of size 15 Inov-8′s. I waited two weeks because we are keeping a close eye on our monthly budget. I can’t wait to get them. I’m going away from the racing flat in favor of more cushioning. Hopefully this will help my ankle. I also bought a Petzl headlamp. No more getting caught in low light on the trails and this opens up my morning runs to the trails instead of lighted streets.
My plan is to reduce the number of runs I do a week and ramp up the cross-training. Hopefully this gives me the most bang for my running time and gives my ankle time to recoup. In my mind it is most important to have one tempo run and one long run each week. My experience in the last two weeks has been that if I run on more days than this, then I end up not getting these runs in because I’m slogging along too slowly.
For me, prepping for the 50k Bandera race, a tempo run is 2 hours total with an hour at low 160s heart rate. The long run will be run at a 145 HR for the first hour and then 155 from then on for a total of four hours at first and building to six hours. I’m doing both of those on hilly trails. If I can do both of those every week, it would be a huge improvement over what I’ve been able to do so far. Not in terms of miles per week so much, as simulating the conditions of the race. If I can get those two in, then I should be fine with cross-training the rest of the week. I just don’t believe that a one hour recovery run at a 140 heart rate is worth the damage it does to my ankle.
This is certainly not by the book. It is really individualized to my current situation. This is definitely a stretch race for me, and I think this is the best way to prepare. If I could handle running 80 or even 60 miles each week, I’d love it, but I think concentrating solely on weekly mileage isn’t the best strategy for me at this point. I need as many high-intensity, long, hilly trail runs as I can get between now and Jan 9.
I’m running the Komen 5K with Chrissy this Sunday. Chrissy has been training very hard for her first race. I’m very proud of her for having the courage to take on the challenge.
I’m running a 25k warmup race in Warda, TX on Nov 21. Then the HCTR group is having a big club run at the Hill Country State Natural Area (the site of the Bandera 50k) on Dec 12. I might actually run 50k on Dec 12, but if I do I’ll take my time.
