Training Log Entry 28: December 11 - 17, 2023

Monday December 11

Off

Tuesday December 12

I entered this week still experiencing the same hamstring and foot pains that began last week. Some of the irritation in my hamstring had extended down to my calf, but it wasn’t at the level to require complete rest. Therefore, I went ahead with this day’s run cautiously.

During the run, I didn’t encounter significant discomfort from the injuries, which was encouraging. However, my energy level was quite low, which made getting through the run challenging. The combination of holding the pace back and running a flat out-and-back course, made the run feel extremely tedious on this day.

Despite this, I completed the scheduled 12km, but skipped doing strides to avoid irritating anything.

Wednesday December 13

Due to the couple of lingering injuries, I opted to alter the planned 7km tempo workout to a 30-minute steady pace effort. This adjustment allowed me to maintain a comparable volume while reducing the overall intensity.

At the beginning of the workout, I felt very flat. I had planned to start slow and gradually increase the pace, however, my legs didn’t feel like they would be capable of accelerating very much.

As I progressed, I gradually began to feel better, but at around 3km, I experience a breathing issue. This was very unexpected, given the current modest pace, so having to stop and catch my breath was discouraging.

After resuming, I deliberately pushed the pace harder. While still below my usual tempo pace, I did managed to speed up and felt felt like my legs were moving better.

Unfortunately, another breathing issue arose at 5.5km, requiring a second break. Following the brief stoppage, I decided to extend the tempo by two minutes and increase the pace again to close it out. During the final portion, I managed to hit a decent pace and completed the rest of the workout without incident.

Because of the stoppages, I decided to extend the tempo 32 minutes. I again increased the pace and managed to finish the rest of the workout without anymore issues.

The 32 minute steady pace tempo covered a distance of 7.11km with the following splits:

• 4:50
• 4:46
• 4:40
• 4:28
• 4:29
• 4:14
• 4:03

Although the workout didn’t go entirely smoothly, the average of 4:30/km matched my target pace and it was overall a decent workout given my condition going in.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume amounted to 14.2km.

Thursday December 14

Similar to the previous day, I was extreme flat throughout this day’s run.

My legs struggled to get going, resulting in a slower-than-usual first half. Despite managing to slightly increase the pace in the second half, I still remained feeling sluggish.

Thankfully, my recent injuries didn’t cause any discomfort during the run. However, I still chose to omit doing strides just to be safe.

The total distance of the run came to 11km.

Friday December 15

This Friday session was a hill workout consisting of 5x2’ hills and 5x45s hills. This workout was based on something I saw recently, and interested me since I hadn’t done many 2-minute hill intervals before.

The 2-minute reps felt extremely smooth. I quickly found a good pace and managed to run the intervals strong and comfortably. Thanks to the long jog back recovery, I was able to run these fairly hard, but I was quite exhausted my the end of the 2-minute hills.

Following a longer set break, I transitioned to the 45-second hills. In contrast to the 2-minute intervals, the 45-second hills focused more on my pure speed, so I was able to still push these hard despite just the work I just did. Despite feeling strong and running good paces on the uphills, I was very exhausted by the end of each rep, causing the recoveries to go a bit long.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this workout and was happy with how I ran. The 2-minute reps hit a good speed endurance sweet spot that I believe I’ve been missing lately in my training and want to continue to work on in the short term.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the day reached 14.1km with 220m of elevation gain.

Saturday December 16

Despite feeling quite fatigued from the previous day’s hill session, I was quite surprised by how well I was moving during this run. The pace was slow and my legs lacked much pop in them, but I still managed to feel smooth and relaxed the entire time.

To finish off, I did 5x100m flat strides, which were also nice and smooth.

In total, the 5.6km run and strides brought the day’s mileage to 6.2km.

Sunday December 17

I woke up feeling somewhat uneasy due to discomfort in my left hamstring. Being cautious, I opted for a flat and relaxed long run similar to last week. I chose the same point-to-point route to Mahone Bay and aimed to hit a similar pace.

Despite the intention to keep the effort controlled, I failed miserably and ended up completing the run at a much faster pace than I had planned. The first 3 kilometers went by smoothly, but by the fourth, I found myself well already ahead of the goal pace. In an attempt to rein it back a bit, I took two short breaks, though they did not help much and I continued to increase the tempo.

By the final 3 kilometers, exhaustion had set into my legs, and my knee drive had began to fad. Somehow, I managed to push through these last few kilometers fairly strong and complete the 20.5-kilometer run with a 4:37/km average.

What surprised me most was that, despite starting the run not feeling extremely fresh and with noticeably heavy legs, I still managed to hold this pace without any major blowups. However, I was extremely dead post-run, probably more than I’ve felt in the past year.

Fortunately, my hamstring was pain-free during the run, but I did have some pain in the ball of my right foot.

This long run brings the week’s total mileage to 78 kilometers with 460 meters of elevation gain.