Training Log Entry 43

April 15 - 28, 2024

Monday April 15

Off

Tuesday April 16

I began this week feeling sluggish. My legs were heavy, making it difficult to settle into a comfortable rhythm. The uphills were particularly hard, even at a relaxed pace, and although the downhills were okay, I never felt fully relaxed at any point.

In total, the run covered 10.4km and 194m of elevation gain.

Wednesday April 17

The plan for this session involved a shorter hill workout of 4-5 reps of the Lower Snake ascent, a 70m climb over 500m.

At the start, I was struggling to move very well. My pace was slower than what I was aiming for, and my legs began to tighten-up on the first rep.

After completing the first climb, I took the descent very easy. As I neared the bottom of the hill, something struck the back of my head. Confused, I looked around for the source, only to notice an owl perched nearby, staring directly at me. Unsure of why the owl attacked me, I dismissed it as a one-off incident and continued with the workout.

The second ascent felt similar to the first rep, and I again made my way back down. However, upon descending, the owl once again hit the back of my head. Now panicking, I picked up pace and exited the wooded trail as quick as possible. The owl hit me two more times while descending before I eventually managed to escape.

Since Lower Snake trail was obviously unusable anymore, I moved over to the Powerline trail. Still shaken by the entire experience, I opted to finish off the workout with a single 5-minute uphill interval, which went by without any issues.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume for the session was 11.3km with 336m of elevation gain.

Thursday April 18

Off

Friday April 19

My Achilles wasn’t feeling very good this day, leading me skip to scheduled workout and instead do a longer easy run.

Although my legs were quite fatigued, I managed to get through the long uphill section without any major issues, albeit with more hiking than preferred. The downhill was quite smooth and, fortunately, my achilles only had some minimal discomfort.

All in, the run covered 13.3km and 327m of elevation gain.

Saturday April 20

This day was a fairly standard Saturday recovery run. My legs were moving well, but they were definitely fatigued from all of the climbing I had accumulated so far this week.

It wasn’t as relaxed as I would’ve liked, but I still managed to get in 6.9km for the day.

Sunday April 21

For this week’s long run, I did a big session up and around Mt. Seymour. The route consisted of two long ascents, one at the very beginning and another near the end. I specifically wanted to simulate doing a hard ascent late in a race, which my next one will have.

The run started off with an ascent on Old Buck trail. My legs were pretty tired heading in, so this climb was challenging, but I made sure to take it easy and felt pretty good.

Following the ascent was a long and technical downhill, which transitioned into a flatter, rolling hills section. While I felt strong for most of this, by the end, my energy level was getting really low, and the punchy hills were becoming hard to get through.

By the time I made it to the second big ascent, I was completely exhausted. I tried to run as much of it as possible, but in the end, I had to hike a large portion of the ascent and still struggled to complete it.

Once I did manage to get to the top, I began the final descent to the finish. This went fairly smoothly, although I ended up getting lost and had to stop multiple times to find my way back on course.

Ultimately, I finished the route and concluded the long run, covering 220km and 1074m of elevation gain. This brought the weekly mileage to 63.9km and 1973m of elevation gain.

Monday April 22

Off

Tuesday April 23

Coming off Sunday’s big long run, my calves were still extremely tight. Aside from that, I felt pretty good heading into this run, but since my plan was to make this another big vertical week, I started off the run very conservatively.

While the calf tightness was a bit concerning at some points, I was moving really well, especially on the uphills. I managed to settle into a comfortable stride, which even at fairly high grades, felt strong and not overly taxing.

I did come across an unexpected very steep section, so to keep the effort level low, I just hiked it. But aside from that, I had no issues holding a steady and consistent pace throughout the 11.8km run.

Wednesday April 24

The plan for the day was to do a hard race-pace workout in the middle of this high-volume training block. The workout consisted of a 7km ascent and descent tempo, with the goal to minimize the amount of hiking done during the ascent.

Entering this workout, my legs felt awful. They were extremely heavy and generally quite stiff. Consequently, I began the ascent conservative, and concentrated on maintaining a short and steady stride. While it was a challenge the whole time, I settle into a decent pace and grinded through the ascent without any hiccups.

I ended up pushing the ascent a bit too hard, so upon reaching the top, I took a 2-minute rest before beginning the descent. Although mostly downhill, a substantial stretch consisted of rolling hills, making this part challenging as well. I focused on maintaining my momentum going over the short rolling hills, which, despite my fatigued legs, allowed me hold a respectable pace throughout this section. Eventually, near the end of the descent, my legs began regain some life in them, allowing me to finish the tempo off strong.

Unfortunately, I failed to start my watch at the beginning of the descent, thus, based on the data I have, the average paces were 5:37/km and 4:47/km for the ascent and descent, respectively. Considering how tired I was before this session, I am quite pleased with these results. Although I wished I recovered better during the descent, given my recent training load, this was to be expected.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the entire session covered 14.2km and 381m of elevation gain.

Thursday April 25

Off

Friday April 26

For this Friday workout, I did my first speed workout in quite some time, 4x2’ hills followed by 4x45" hills.

From the start of the warm-up, my body felt considerably exhausted, with my legs lacking any pop in them. Consequently, the start of the workout was a huge shock to my system, which made the first few reps particularly hard. To make sure I completed the entire workout, I eased off the paced, and got quite more comfortable by the third rep.

Following the 2-minute intervals, I moved on to the 45-second hills. These felt noticeably stronger compared to the longer reps, but they still lacked any good pop to them. Nevertheless, I was recovering quickly between these hills, making these short hills go by relatively easy.

Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total distance for the session was 11.9km, with 270m of elevation gain.

Saturday April 27

This was just another easy recovery run. While I did have some discomfort in my left calf, I managed to keep the intensity low, and complete the 6.8km run feeling decent.

Sunday April 28

For the last big long run before my upcoming race in two weeks, I decided to tackle Burnaby Mountain again. I wasn’t feeling great from the start, but did managed to loosen up a little after the first few kilometers.

Following a section of rolling hills, I arrived at the first major climb of the day. Given how I felt, this went fairly well, and I was able to run more of the ascent than I had anticipated. However, soon after was the second climb, which I struggled to maintain a consistent pace. By the time I reached the top, I was completely drained and needed to take a long break to fully recover.

Despite being worn out, I actually made it through the next section quite well, running the entirety of Cardiac Hill without any hiking for the first time ever. After that, it was mostly downhill, so I took it easy and wrapped up the 22.6km long run with 706m of elevation gain.

This finished off the weekly mileage at 67.3km and 1706m of elevation gain.