Well, this week I started gaining volume. Although I still have a way to go to my November fitness level, I made strides. My calf is >98% better, with some niggles in my foot and ankle, but nothing to preclude me from running. I’m not ready to add real quality and intensity to my training, but I will continue to add more miles. I added a long run (which used to constitute a middle-long run…), which felt great. By “felt great”, I mean I accomplished it: the last 10K felt worse than that of a marathon. This paragraph was a tl;dr.
Monday I took a beastly rest day. No reason to run. Tuesday evening I ran with my running group. I (somewhat) arrogantly mentioned hill repeats for the route we would take. I had to oblige, so I did five repeats to which one girl called me “insane”; the fact that I took that as a complement confirmed her assertion. That run was actually really hard — my heart rate was stupid high throughout, which indubitably made it more difficult.
I’m taking it day-by-day. Maybe I’ll run tomorrow, maybe I won’t. It’ll depend. I usually go into runs more with a distance goal, than a pace goal. Paces usually go by level of difficulty: easy, marathon, tempo, hill repeat, etc. Some days are better than others.
The run I really wanted was a long run on Sunday. I wanted to do 16, as that’s kind of the minimal-distance long run for Christian (Pfitz literally lists 16 miles as an MLR for his high-volume running plans, for comparison). I got 16 miles. The last 10K felt worse than the last 10K of a marathon, maybe even worse than an ultra. That dull, numb pain with the last two miles oon fumes. I still averaged a ~8:30 pace for the run..
I’m not sure where I’ll be in a week, but I’m going to add more distance, and when I’m confident I can run hills okie-dokie, I’ll add them.
55.3mi | 8:26/min | 7h46m | 965ft*
- Tues, 7th: 5.26mi 7:34m/m 312 ft
- Wed, 8th: 8mi 8:25/min
- Thursday, 9th: 8.00mi 8:42/min
- Fri, 10th: 4.0mi 8:39/min
- Friday, 10th: 6.0mi 8:48/min
- Sat, 11th: 8.0mi 8:11/min
- Sun, 12th: 16.0mi 8:32
*Per Strava, they’re probably on something
