After a month of solid training, this week has not been the prime of my training. After running a great race last weekend I wanted to continue my training. I will be the first to admit my fire was lit and I was ready to train hard. I wanted to power through another great week of nonslogging miles. Unfortunately my body said no thanks.
With that I tried to stay positive and relaxed. I focused on foam rolling and getting easy mileage in. Why I thought I might be able to handle a tempo run (my thought process at the beginning of the week) is beyond me… There were a couple of things I did after the Lake Effect Half Marathon that I knew were a poor choice and would result in sore muscles.
1. I didn’t cool down or shake out my legs. I kind of did a single mile cool down chatting with people but I did not shake out my legs and instead I got in a car and drove 6 hours. The lactic acid built up in my legs like too much PAM on a waffle iron. Gross.
2. I started looking forward to my solid 2 weeks of training for Shamrock instead of recovering. I should have foam rolled the day after, two days after but the first time my legs touched a foam roller was Wednesday.
| Monday: | 10.62 treadmill 8:56 | |
| Tuesday: | 11.4 easy untimed | |
| Wednesday: | OFF | |
| Thursday: | 13.3 (8:16 pace) | P90X |
| Friday: | 11.65 (8:11) | |
| Saturday: | 15.5 Trails with Tim | |
| Sunday: | 12 | Nike Core |
| Total: | 75 |
In summary this how my week looked: sore calves, bundled up in layers and snowflake emojis.
Actual training:
Monday’s run actually felt fine. I didn’t feel tired or sluggish. I just felt like I had done a hard workout the day before.
Tuesday hit me like a ton of bricks. It could have partially been because I didn’t sleep well, had DOMS and hadn’t stretched or even worn compression sleeves but that run felt absolutely miserable. I wish I hadn’t run outdoors in the park because if I had on the treadmill I would have stopped. Lucky for me by the time I wanted to stop the shortest route back made it over 11 miles. I should say that I didn’t completely awful or injury prone, I just felt like I didn’t want to be running. My mental toughness was at a 0.
So I took Wednesday off and relaxed and felt a lot better on Thursday.
Despite the cold weather, I felt awesome on Thursday and averaged my usual 8-8:30 nonslogging pace. Friday was a little too cold for me and I ran indoors. I felt great on Friday and it gave me the confidence that I was about 50% recovered.
Saturday I did a long a run in the park with Tim. It felt good and it was nice to be able to run with someone. Another reason I was mentally struggling this week was because of running alone in the cold. Sunday my plan is to an easy shakeout run before it snows.
It was a lot less core and strength than I wanted last week but hopefully I’ll get back to it this week!
Goals for next week:
I am hoping to continue my recovery and find a 5k or 10k next weekend. After taking Wednesday off, my legs felt 100 times better so I’m hoping to continue progressing
Questions for you:
How was your week of training?
Do races make you hungry to be better or do you normally like rest?
Honestly after races I like to rest and relax. I don’t know what came over me this week. I think the fact that I wasn’t expecting to do so well and thought the Lake Effect would be more of an 80% effort versus 95% caused me hungry for a faster half.
I like to continue regular training after a race, just taking it easier for a few days in terms of intensity but not in terms of mileage.
I like to rest and recover after a race and I start getting hungry to get faster once my legs feel fresh again. I usually think an awful lot about running in the few days after a race but only do easy, slow runs until I feel back to normal. By then, I have so many plans in my head from days of anticipation that I kind of fire on all cylinders when I get back to it.
I like to take it easy after a race, which is what I did this past week. Plus this past week was pretty hectic and just hard mentally. I am so not in the mood for another 5-10 inches of snow that’s expected.
That snow is not real life…at least in my mind. 😉
I had a really rotten week of training – it isn’t my body though, it’s all mental. I’m just not in the mood to run for hours every day! I’m hoping that a day off will get me ready for my last week of heavy training!
Great job on your millions of miles!!! You’re phenomenal!!! 😉
<3 snowflake emoji.
Best wishes for an awesome build towards Shamrock. I'd love to see you PR there!
I’m so glad I can get the emojis on the computer and paste them into my heart.
Thank you for your support! It’s always been awesome. 🙂
It depends on the race, usually after a half I want to relax for a day or two, but a 5K or 10K that feels like a really good workout makes me want to keep pushing. Sometimes it feels like training drags on forever, especially when I haven’t raced at all in four months. I’m ready to get back at it with Shamrock and April Fool’s!
Which race is April Fools? That sounds awesome! Good luck and I hope to see you Shamrocking!
It’s in AC, first weekend in April. Out and back on the Boardwalk, I haven’t run it before, but I don’t think it’s very big and it’s definitely flat (yay).
Atlantic City? I am signed up for that too!
Which is why I asked! I was hoping you were too 🙂
Awesome! I want to break 1:40 at Shamrock, but if I don’t, that gives me another chance, plus it gets another of the 50 states checked off.
Yes snowflake emojis! There’s nothing that revs you up to train more like a stellar race, but it’s frustrating when our bodies don’t cooperate. The soreness usually hits me two days post race, so I do log a quality workout 24 hours after, and then let my body start to recover. And thanks for reminding me to foam roll 🙂
Gahhh hope your calves feel better. My sore calves are going to be the death of me.
I did wonder after your spectacular effort at the Lake Effect half whether your next half wasn’t a wee bit too close for a PR, but you’re a far better runner than I am and so I trust in your wisdom 🙂 I don’t like having too many half marathons close together, because it takes me ages to recover from those…they always absolutely kill me. On the flipside, I do enjoy marathons close together because somehow I recover more quickly when I’m running slower but for longer, and it’s useful to use one marathon as a fast training run for another, since these days I do prefer to run the full distance prior to the main ‘goal’ race (otherwise my confidence is generally below zero!)
I can totally understand why you’d be eager to keep up the momentum after such a fantastic race though – I just haven’t had anything anwhere near that great in terms of performance in over three years, so I tend to forget what it feels like!
xxx
I like your little paint picture. I’m glad you felt better after your days off, good luck finding a race to jump into.
Sometimes races make me hungry to get better, it really depends. After a good race, I am usually motivated, but I do take it easier for a day or so. What really motivated me was a few bad races, because it made me rethink how I was training and working out. I guess it’s a “redemption” thing :).
HOLLY- I had a very similar week after racing a 20k on Sunday. I was so ready mentally to hit it hard. I took Monday off COMPLETELY except for a yoga class. Tuesday was a planned 45-60 min tempo at 6:31 pace… well that didn’t happen. I felt pretty nauseus and gave up after 25 min and only 6.5 miles of actual running. Friday I had some very solid tempo intervals. But this whole week was just not stellar at all. So weird how we are on the same path here… it’s like telepathic energy or something lol. I’ll do a post on my week so you can see what I did and what I plan to do next week too. While my legs felt phenomenal all week, my body and mind didn’t. Racing taxes us more than we think.
I know that stretching after workouts is something I need to do more, but I don’t usually think about it until I can’t walk the next day haha
Annnnnd here’s Hollie with the awesome artwork again lol haha! Don’t you just love how the post race soreness always hits on a Tuesday … NOT! I’m really good about recovering post race and a good always leaves me thirsting for more. No worries chica! You’ll get back on that horse
*** a good race (typo my above comment oops)
I am sure you will be back to feeling good this week. You were smart and listened to your body by taking Wednesday off. I have my “down” week this week, and I take a day off. I always really enjoy that! You are having a great buildup so far, and all those days you feel like crap, you are still building! The results will pay off this spring 🙂
I can’t wait to race, just need to find one where I will have people to race against. I know I am in shape to run under 17:00 for a 5k, just need to find a good one! Any ideas of 5k/10ks close to you that are decently fast? I ran 17:10 in my last 3 mile rep a few weeks ago, so I know I am ready to go!
Stay positive friend! Your calves will be happy soon!
I know this feeling to well except with crossfit/lifting. I got a massage on Saturday and the first thing the therapist said when I was done was that I need to stretch and take care of myself more. She had never felt that much tightness ALL OVER… time to up the water intake and bust out the dusty roller.
Tight calves. That’s the worst feeling.
You definitely earned some recovery after last weekend, no doubt. Races make me hungry for more.. make me want to train harder and longer but usually my body says, no no definitely not.
Especially after a race, I need to master the art of easy weeks, not just days. The first day or two my body usually gives me no choice. The rest of the week however, I tend to run my usual runs (maybe taking out a specific tempo run) and call it easy.
Yeah I am too good a lying to myself, and really it’s just dumb. I would like to commit to working on that over the next few weeks.
I usually rest, and spend my time signing up for more races, because of wanting to better my time, or try to PR or whatever. So yes, I guess I do both?