Training Log Entry 16: September 11 - 17, 2023

Monday September 11

Off

Tuesday September 12

I started off this week feeling very tired. Going into this run, my legs and hips were sore, and my overall energy level was quite low.

Surprisingly, the run didn’t turn out too bad. The first half was pretty slow, but by the end, I did start to get to a decent pace. However, I never felt comfortable throughout the run. I only stopped twice, but both times were longer than usual because my legs weren’t recovering well. I did manage to get a good amount of mileage on the day, with the run covering 9.5km.

Wednesday September 13

This workout ended up being quite frustrating. I decided to do the same workout that I had skipped the previous week due to my calf cramping, which was a fartlek of 6x(2’ on, 2’ float).

Once again, I didn’t feel great going into the run, and my warm-up was pretty slow. Nonetheless, I still went along with the workout and was surprised by how good I felt once I started going. For the first half of the fartlek, I felt incredibly smooth, and the fast reps went by quickly and effortlessly.

Starting at the 4th rep, I decided to pick up the pace. However, during the 4th rep, I had a small breathing spasm, which forced me to stop. Up to that point, I bad been feeling really good, so it was very discouraging when this happen. Fortunately, I was able to catch my breath quickly and continued with the fartlek.

While my breathing wasn’t as relaxed as before, I managed to finish the rest of the workout and hit good paces in both the fast reps and floats. The splits for the fast reps were 4:19/km, 4:15/km, 4:10/km, 4:03/km, 3:55/km and 4:58/km, averaging 4:06/km. While the floats were 4:45/km, 4:36/km, 4:29/km, 4:25/km, 4:21/km and 4:36/km, averaging 4:32/km. Overall, I am happy with how my legs felt running at faster paces, and I think my breathing is slowly improving, especially considering how strong I finished the workout.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the day was 12.6km

Thursday September 14

This was another not so good run. I was really exhausted going into it and I couldn’t maintain a steady pace throughout the entire run. I did cover 9km, but it was very slow and I felt really bad overall.

Friday September 15

My aim for this week is to do a fast long run, so I opted for a moderate-intensity workout on this day. The workout was 5x1km at threshold pace with 2:30 rest.

Overall, this workout went extremely well. The splits were 4:07, 4:07, 3:55, 4:04 and 3:45, averaging 4:00. Reps 1, 3 and 5 were on a slight downhill, while reps 2 and 4 were uphill. These 1k’s all felt very smooth, and it was only during the last two reps that I felt like I was pushing a bit towards the end.

I’ve been having some irritation in my left calf/hamstring over the past few days, so I focused on maintaining a short stride and landing more on the balls of my feet. However, when I was going faster in the final rep, it did feel a bit awkward.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the day was 12.5km.

Saturday September 16

A tropical storm was coming through, so I took this day off.

Sunday September 17

The route for this week’s long run was a point-to-point out to Mahone Bay. The original goal was to make this run fast, however, it didn’t quite go as planned.

Going into the run, I didn’t feel that great. My chest was tight from the start, and it never loosen up throughout the run. Although I didn’t experience any breathing spasms, it felt like I was on the verge of having one for most of the time. I had a few early breaks to try and calm my breathing, but nothing I tried was working.

For the remainder of the run, I was stopping frequently, which led to my pacing being all over the place. My legs didn’t all feel that great, but it was likely because my breathing was causing my body to tense up.

In the end, I managed to finish the 16km run, which brought my weekly mileage to 59.6km with 320m of elevation gain over 5 days.