Training Log Entry 12: August 14 - August 20, 2023
Monday August 14
Off
Tuesday August 15
I didn’t feel very good during this run. My hips were really tight, causing my legs to feel flat the entire time. I took a few short breaks just to catch my breath because my chest felt quite congested, but other than that, my breathing was good. I’m glad that my pace was at least back to where it should be after last week’s string of slow runs. Ultimately, the run covered 8.4km.
Wednesday August 16
After not doing any workouts the last week, my goal for this day’s workout was to get my legs used to faster running by having the volume high while keeping to a moderate intensity. I settled on the workout of 3x(10 minutes) with 2 minutes rest. The goal was to run this at steady pace, which to manage the short rest, I thought 4:25-4:30/km would be good.
During the warm-up, I wasn’t feeling particularly good about the workout. My legs felt heavy, and my chest tight, making it difficult to loosen up during the warm-up. Nonetheless, I took my time to stretch and got into the workout.
All in all, this workout went quite well. I ended up running much faster than planned in all of the reps, running paces of 4:18/km, 4:16/km and 4:14/km. The effort level was also higher than I intended, leading me to take 4-5 minutes rest between the reps. I struggled to find a good rhythm throughout the workout. The trail was much more uneven then I had expected, causing me to frequently avoid pot holes and muddy sections, which made it difficult to settle into a pace.
During the third rep, I ended up taking a 30s break at the 7:30 mark after hitting the wall. I’m pretty okay with this, considering the faster I was running and ambitious total volume of the workout.
Another positive from this session was that I had absolutely no pain in my calf or hamstring throughout the workout. Over the previous few days, I’ve been doing some rehab exercises for them, and I am really surprised by how quickly they’re improving.
Including the warm-up and cool-down, the day’s total mileage was 14km.
Thursday August 17
I didn’t feel too good during this hilly easy run. My breathing wasn’t as relaxed as I would have liked, and I found myself taking more breaks than usual. I might have been tired from the previous day’s workout, however my legs didn’t feel any more sore than they usually do. Ultimately, the run ended up being 8.8km with 176m of elevation gain.
Friday August 18
For this session, I did a hill sprint workout for the first time in quite a while. I’ve been avoiding these workouts due to my calf injury, as sprinting uphill places a lot of strain on it. The workout consisted of 10x300m with a jog back recovery. After the 5th rep, I took a couple extra minutes for a set break.
Overall, this workout was pretty good. The splits were 87, 85, 86, 82, 83, 79, 80, 82, 80 and 79, to average 82 per rep. I felt pretty flat at the beginning, but got much more comfortable by the end. I was pretty rusty at doing fast hills, and had to focus on shortening my stride after the first few slow reps.
Including the warm-up and cool-down, I finished the day with 12.9km and 180m of elevation gain.
Saturday August 19
Right from the start, my legs were considerably stiff, and I struggled to get into a relaxed rhythm throughout this run. Specifically, my stride felt choppy, which caused me to go faster than I had intended In the end, I finished the run at 6km.
Sunday August 20
Considering this was my first proper long run in two weeks and that the workouts I did earlier in the week were quite taxing on my legs, I was uncertain about what I wanted to do for this run. Ultimately, I decided to keep the run relatively flat and do a point-to-point long run on the trail.
I tried to make an effort to start off extremely relaxed and build up the pace only during the last ~5km. However, this plan did not goes as expected. For some reason, I struggled to hold my pace back and ended up pushing way too hard during the first 5km. Just as I was about to take a break in order to slow myself down, I suddenly rolled my ankle quite badly. The roll wasn’t serious enough to prevent me from continuing, but it did manage to slow me down, at least for a few kilometers.
The remainder of the run was alright. I kept a good pace, but the aggressive start and the fatigue from the week did catch up to me, making the run feel harder than I would’ve liked. My pacing was also a bit messed up since the spot I initially intended finish turned out to be 3km short of my target distance, so I had tag on a significant chunk at the end.
All in all, the run ended up being 16.4km. With this, the week’s total mileage reached 66.3km with 520m of elevation gain.