Training Log Entry 2: June 5 - 11, 2023
Time for the second week of the training log. After bringing up my mileage this past week with mostly easy runs, the plan for this week is to maintain the mileage in the low 60s while adding back one workout.
Monday June 5
Off
Tuesday June 6
Didn’t sleep very well the night before, causing me to feel sluggish throughout the entire run. I decided early on that it would be fine to take some breaks in order to hit the full mileage for the day. Sometimes walking or stretching for just a few seconds can bring new life to my legs. However, this didn’t end up helping during the first half, so I decided move my planned strides to the turn-around point (instead of after the run) to try and loosen up. I did 5x100m strides which felt comfortable and quick, but I did feel a bit a tightness in my left hamstring. On the way back, I felt slightly better, but overall wasn’t as comfortable as I would hope for after a rest day. Still managed to hit the goal of 10k for the day.
Wednesday June 7
Going into today’s run, I felt a bit better compared to the day before, but still not how I would like to feel. At the start of the run, I picked up the pace too quickly which caused me to take a few breaks in the first half. However, in the second half, I felt more under control and was able to pull back the pace.
To get rid of this sluggish feeling I’ve been having, I think I need to work on going to bed earlier, since once the sun comes up I struggle to get any good sleep afterwards.
Thursday June 8
For this day I split the run into two parts.
The first part was a bit over 7k and felt better than the day before. I only stopped once and the pacing was fairly even the whole time but my breathing felt a little strained.
For the second part, I tested out my new pairs of Adidas Prime X’s, which are the first racing carbon super shoe that I’ve ever worn. They’re probably not the best shoes to have as my first pair, because of their illegal stack height, but I bought them because I was able to get them for cheap. In this part, I did an easy 1k and then did 5x100m strides. Running in the shoes felt very odd. I had to pay a lot of attention to every step I made and it felt awkward running too slow or when my cadence got too quick during the strides. Afterwards I messed around with how I laced the shoes and I think that’s something I’ll have play around with a bit more.
Friday June 9
This run was my first workout in 2 weeks and also the first full run in the Prime X’s.
In the warm up, I had some soreness from the shoes. At the start, I had them laced up tight, since I felt that they ran a little big on me, but after the warm up I loosened them and which felt a lot better.
The plan for the workout was 6x(2’ on, 2’ float) but only ended up doing 5 reps. Since it was my first workout in a while and I haven’t been feel good lately I didn’t set any paces and never checked my watch during the workout. Overall, the workout went okay. Once I picked up my cadence, the shoes quickly became a lot more comfortable. While my legs had no issues during the workout, my breathing was not great and was definitely what made the workout feel difficult. My breathing felt similar to how it feels after a long break from running. The worst air quality lately may be causing the discomfort. Because of this, I took an extra 60s break after the 3rd rep to catch my breath.
In the end, the paces were really good with the on’s averaging at 4:02/k and the floats at 4:34/k. To compare, in the last fartlet workout of 10x(1’ on, 1’ float), I averaged 4:09/k and 4:36/k for the on’s and floats respectively. I would definitely contribute the speed up to the shoes since I really didn’t feel that great during the workout.
Saturday June 10
Standard short and easy Saturday run. Legs were sore after the workout so I was just trying to flush the legs before Sunday’s long run. There was a 5k race happening on the trail so I had to adjust the route. The run felt okay, just hoping that I feel fresh tomorrow so I can get a good long run in.
Sunday June 11
Decided to do a very similar point-to-point long run to Mahone Bay as I did last week. I wanted to avoid any breathing issues, so I focused on staying relaxed for most of the run and only pushing it at the very end.
While I never had any issues, my breathing never felt completely relaxed and I my crest had some tightness for most of the run. Other than that, my legs were feeling good and I had a good rhythm.
At 10k, I took a short break just to calm down my breathing to avoid any spasms from happening. I picked it up after that for the last 4k and has very surprised to split 4:09 and 3:51 for the last 2k’s. This was one of the fastest long runs I’ve had in quite a while and has gotten me extremely positive about how my training is heading.
This ended the week exactly as planned at 61.4k.