Training Log Entry 19: October 2 - 15, 2023
I was running late on finishing up the last week’s post, so I decided to combine the past two weeks into a single update.
Monday October 2
Off
Tuesday October 3
I began this week feeling incredibly exhausted. Throughout this run, I had very little energy and was never able to maintain any consistent pace for an extended period of time.
I decided to stop the run at 7.5km. I followed up the run with 5x100m strides to add a bit more mileage for the day.
After this run, I was considering making this an easy week, but decided to see how the workout the next day goes before making a decision.
Wednesday October 4
For this day’s workout, I decided to do a fartlek of 10-15x(1’ on, 1’ float), leaving the actual number of reps open to how I was feeling. I opted for this workout since I wanted to get in some speed work in before my planned long hill session later this week and felt I could manage this workout despite my recent training.
Although I felt somewhat better during the warm-up compared to the previous day, my energy level was quite low. Once I started the workout, I didn’t feel very comfortable, especially during the floats. Despite this, I aerobically has recovering well and the reps went by quickly.
After the 9th rep, I stopped to remove my bottle which was bouncing a lot in belt. This break took longer than expected, which ended up ruining my momentum. I took another break after the 11th rep and then decided to end the workout after the 12th.
Throughout the workout, I felt like I was running at a slow pace. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I checked my splits afterwards. The splits were the following (floats in brackets):
- 4:02/km (4:35/km)
- 4:02/km (4:39/km)
- 3:53/km (4:29/km)
- 3:46/km (4:23/km)
- 3:44/km (4:43/km)
- 3:46/km (4:30/km)
- 3:46/km (4:24/km)
- 3:38/km (5:00/km)
- 4:02/km (4:43/km)
- 3:39/km (4:29/km)
- 3:45/km (4:11/km)
- 3:27/km
The average for the ons was 3:48/km, and for the floats it was 4:33/km. Although the floats were a bit all over the place, I’m overall pretty satisfied with these splits.
Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the day was 12.2km.
Thursday October 5
Despite having a decent workout the previous day, I felt extremely exhausted again this day. Similar to Tuesday, I struggled to maintain any consistent pace for an extended period of time, and it took a considerable amount of time for my legs to recover during breaks. I decided to end the run after only 7.8km.
Thinking about the symptoms I’d been experiencing recently, I realized they lined up with having an iron deficiency. I’ve dealt with low iron levels before, but I hadn’t taken any supplements in the past year. After this day’s run, I started taking iron supplements, so I’ll observe if this helps improve my condition over the next 1-2 weeks.
Friday October 6
I went into this session with the plan of doing a long hill workout of 8 MARC loops. Despite the workout being 12km of volume, I thought I could at least finish it, even if it meant going at a slow pace.
However, despite my confidence, I was only able to complete 3 reps before my legs ran out of strength. It was the same issue my legs getting fatigued quickly and not being able to recover without taking frequent and long breaks.
Despite everything, I still managed to cover 8.5km with 210m of elevation gain for the day. After this run, I made the decision to take the rest of the week extremely easy.
Saturday October 7
Off.
Sunday October 8
For this week’s easy long run, I followed my regular loop starting at the Glen Allen trail head.
Overall, the run went fine. I kept the effort level really easy, taking frequent breaks. Despite being low on energy, I still managed to cover 13km for the day.
Although the run wasn’t anything great, I was very surprised to discover a newly made trail extension. A few months ago, I had mentioned how the trail was currently disconnected at Pine Grove Road, with no easy connection onto the LaHave Trail. To my surprise, they fixed this in almost the exact way I had envisioned. The trail now continues from Pine Grove Road to Highway 10, which is partially shown in the photo below.
After crossing Highway 10, the extension continues towards the LaHave Trail. However, this segment is still under construction and has only been cleared, as you can seen in the photo below.
The last time I ran through this area was in early September, and I didn’t notice any signs of construction workout back then. So I’m very surprised at how quickly all of this was accomplished.
After including this 13km long run, I concluded the week with a total of 49.6km and 580m of elevation gain.
Monday October 9
Off
Tuesday October 10
Knowing that I needed to take it easy for a little longer, I decided to make this a down week as well.
The first run of this week was not much better than the previous few. Once again, I felt overall weak and couldn’t maintain a steady pace for a long period of time. My legs felt alright, and I had a little pop in them, but I lacked the strength to sustain the pace.
In the end, I managed to complete 8km for the day.
Wednesday October 11
This was the first run in a while that I felt pretty good during. I decided to do a loop route in Italy Cross that I’ve been wanting to do. The route mainly consists of rolling hills, which is something I generally avoid during easy days. However, the hills actually made this run really enjoyable. I did take a few breaks, especially near the end where there were some steeper hills, but in general, I was recovering quite well from the hills, which is something I’ve been struggling with lately.
The run ended up covering 12km with 120m of elevation gain. I’m considering doing this route more often on my easy days once I’ve built up more strength again. My current easy day routes have become a bit stale recently, and mentally, loop routes are much easier to get through.
Thursday October 12
On this day, I decided to do another hilly easy run. I felt pretty good during this run, although my legs were a bit tired going in, even though the previous day I kept it easy.
I ended up doing 9.7km with 200m of elevation gain during this run.
Friday October 13
For my only workout of the week, I did a fartlek of 7x(2’ on, 2’ float). The goal was to keep the workout very controlled during the ons, while maintaining my usual target pace during the floats.
This ended up being a good workout that was slightly ruined by poor pacing. Throughout the fartlek, I refrained from checking my pace and judged everything by feel. Even though I aimed for only a moderate effort, I pushed too hard during the ons, which led me to take breaks after the 3rd and 5th reps. The splits for the ons were 4:06/km, 3:55/km, 3:49/km, 4:09/km, 4:08/km, 3:54/km and 3:53/km, averaging 3:59/km. The splits for the floats were 4:31/km, 4:22/km, 4:32/km, 4:39/km, 5:17/km, 4:47/km and 4:34/km, averaging 4:39/km.
Early in the workout, I didn’t feel very comfortable and struggled to find a good rhythm until the last few reps. The last two reps were very smooth and I felt very good afterwards, which was encouraging to see.
Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the day was 13km.
Saturday October 14
This was undoubtedly the best Saturday run I’ve had in the past few months. Though it was just 5.2km, I felt incredibly relaxed, and the entire run felt effortless. I had some soreness from the previous day’s workout, but I managed to gradually build up during the run, which flushed out my legs really well.
After this run, I can confidently say that I’m feeling much better since taking iron supplements again.
Sunday October 15
Even though I was feeling much stronger, I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and stuck with an easy long run to wrap up this down week. For the run, I decided on a flat out-and-back route and planned on maintaining a controlled pace.
Despite not following my plan of keep the run easy, this turned out to be one of the best long runs I’ve had recently. Overall, I felt really strong and managed to keep a steady pace Throughout most of the run. I did take a brief break at 11km, primarily to stop me from pushing it too hard. However, that didn’t help very much and I pushed the last few kilometers probably a little too hard given the plan going into the run.
What excited me the most is how strong I felt. Although I still need to work on my pacing, this run has given me the confidence to start working towards much longer run again.
The total volume for the day was 16km, bringing the weekly mileage to 64km with 530m of elevation gain.