Training Log Entry 33

January 15 - 21, 2024

Monday January 15

Off

Tuesday January 16

This week my plan is to fully return to my regular training schedule. Given the planned high increase in volume, my focus this week is on keeping the easy runs very relaxed to ensure I can get through the scheduled workouts.

Luckily, the fresh layer of snow on the trails on this first run of the week made it easy to hold back and maintain a relaxed pace. Initially, I had some breathing issues due to some bad allergies I’d been struggling with for several days. However, as the run progressed, my congestion began to clear up, and by the end, I felt significantly better than when I started.

While my legs didn’t feel amazing at any point, I nevertheless accomplished the goal of keeping the run relaxed. In total, the run covered 10.6km.

Wednesday January 17

As part of the build-up to my 25km trail race at the end of February, this session was my first race-specific workout, consisting of a 30-minute hilly tempo at steady pace. The goal was to quickly settle into a hard yet comfortable pace where I felt strong on the uphills and could recover quickly on the downhills. The initial 4.5km of the route contained most of the elevation gain, so my plan was to remain controlled through this section and increase the pace in the final few kilometers to finish strong.

Fortunately, everything went according to plan and I quickly settled into a comfortable rhythm that felt effortless. I focused on keeping my arms relaxed and my cadence quick on both the uphill and downhill sections, which really helped me mentally lock in. The only issue I encountered was some ice on the road, which made me slightly cautious on the downhills.

Following the hilly section, the rest of the tempo was predominantly flat. To maintain an overall moderate intensity for the tempo, I gradually increased my pace over the final few kilometers while continuing to focus on staying relaxed. Only in the last 3 minutes did I speed up significantly, but I still felt strong and remained in control right till the end of the tempo.

The 30-minute tempo covered 7.12km with 70m of elevation gain, with the following kilometer splits:

• 4:19
• 4:17
• 4:20
• 4:13
• 4:16
• 4:10
• 3:57
• 3:43/km (for 120m)

With an average pace of 4:13/km, I’m very satisfied with this performance, particularly considering how comfortable I felt throughout it. I thought I settled into a solid pace that I could maintain for an extended period of time and can handle most hills without difficulty. Additionally, I was happy with how my breathing felt, never having any concerns throughout the workout.

My plan over the coming weeks is to increase the volume of these hilly, steady-pace tempos, and this session has given me a lot of confidence in being able to follow through with this plan.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the session amounted to 14km.

Thursday January 18

Although I felt good immediately after the previous day’s workout, I began to feel its effects on this run. Deciding on a hilly easy run ended up being questionable choice, given how my legs felt on the uphill sections. Maintaining a consistent pace for an extended period was difficult, and I needed to take several breaks throughout the run.

Despite these difficulties, I managed to reach the day’s target, covering 10km with 197m of elevation gain.

Friday January 12

For this session, I decided to try out the switchbacks off the LaHave trail. The workout consisted of 5 reps of the 330m switchbacks, followed by 5 reps of 45-second hills. The structure is similar to my 2-minute + 45-second hill workout, but with a focus on efficiently climbing the steep inclines at race effort.

Unsure about the difficulty of the switchbacks, I started the workout off conservatively to get a feel for the route. Surprisingly, despite the around 40m of elevation gain in the 330m long hill, it proved to be much more runnable than anticipated, and my fresh legs made the reps surprisingly smooth. My splits for the switchbacks were 1:53, 1:54, 1:49, 1:48 and 1:45, averaging 1:49.

After that I moved on to the faster 45-second hills for some speed work. Despite the fatigue already in my legs, these shorter hills also felt strong, as I focused on maintaining good form with a compact and quick stride.

Overall, I was happy with how strong I felt during this workout. The switchbacks were a good simulation of the terrain I’ll encounter in upcoming races, making this a productive race-specific session.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the day’s volume totaled 13.7km with 284m of elevation gain.

Saturday January 20

Despite having already accumulated a significant amount of mileage and vertical so far this week, I felt unexpectedly fresh during this Saturday run. My legs showed little signs of fatigue throughout the 5.5km, and being able to just relax and coast the entire time was nice to see.

Following the run, I did 5x100m strides, which also felt great. The strides brought my total mileage for the day to 6km.

Sunday January 21

Following the previous day’s run, I started to have some pain on the top of my left foot once again. Although it had mostly subsided by the morning, I decided to be cautious and altered my plan for this week’s long run from a hilly route on the roads to a flat trail route instead.

Feeling relatively fresh, I started the run at a conservative pace. However, all of the work from the past week quickly caught up to me, and I struggled to pick up my pace much at all. Aerobically I felt decent, especially considering how long this run was compared to recent weeks. Unfortunately, the tightness in my hips caused significant discomfort and ceased up a lot towards the end of the run.

Despite these challenges, I managed to complete 20.4km, albeit at a much slower pace than usual. This brought the total weekly mileage to 74.7km with 790m of elevation gain.

Reflecting on the week, the over 20km of increased mileage and over doubling of vertical gain over the past week likely contributed to the difficulties during the long run. Nevertheless, I intend to remain in the 75-80km mileage range while gradually increasing my vertical over the next few weeks, as I believe this will be beneficial for my upcoming races.