Training Log Entry 45

May 27 - June 9, 2024

After taking 10 days off from running, I gradually eased back into training. While my calf issue had only slightly improved, I was told that I could still run, and slowly rebuilt my mileage with flat, easy runs. The subsequent two weeks were inconsistent, with me taking days off when my calf felt particularly bad. However, after a couple weeks, I felt ready to resume proper training.

Monday May 27

Off

Tuesday May 28

The beginning of this run did not feel particularly good. Although the soreness in my legs was tolerable, I aerobically felt felt weak, which made finding a comfortable rhythm challenging. Fortunately, after a few easy kilometers, I began to feel really comfortable and everything began to feel effortless. The rest of the run went by smoothly, culminating to a total of 10.6km.

Wednesday May 29

Much like the previous day, I did not feel very good at the start, with some discomfort in my ankles making the first few kilometers clunky. After that I felt a bit better, and gradually increased the pace in the second half of the run. Despite not being as easy as I would’ve hoped, I successfully managed to complete 14km for the day.

Thursday May 30

Off

Friday May 31

This day’s session marked my first workout since my injury. Given my uncertainty about my legs’ condition, I opted for an easily adjustable workout of 2-minute hill intervals.

Starting the warm-up, I felt exhausted throughout my whole body. To make things worse, I rolled my ankle during the warm-up, leaving me not very confident heading into the actual workout.

Unsurprisingly, the first rep felt slow, with my legs lacking any pop. Over the course of the next few reps, it gradually improved as I felt more comfortable. In the end, I did four 2-minute reps before transitioning to some 45-second hills. Due to time constraints, I only did one additional rep, but I felt surprisingly strong at the quicker pace.

While I never felt amazing at any point during this workout, I came out largely satisfied with this first workout back in quite some time. Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total volume amounted to 10.8km and 236m of vertical gain.

Saturday June 1

On this day, I felt surprisingly good during the recovery run. My legs were moving really well, with little soreness from the previous day’s workout. I ended up going way too fast for a recovery day, but I still felt relaxed throughout the 6.8km run.

Sunday June 2

Monday June 3

Off

Tuesday June 4

This week marked the first week that I attempted to follow my usual training schedule. To start it off, this day’s session was an hilly easy run.

Similar to previous week, I had a lot of soreness in both my legs at the beginning of the run. While it mostly subsided after a few kilometers, I never quite felt relaxed, particularly during the uphill sections where I felt weak in my ankles.

Despite these challenges, I managed to complete 10.1km with 173m of elevation gain.

Wednesday May 29

Since my calf wasn’t feeling great, so I opted to forego my scheduled workout and instead went for a longer, easy run.

Overall, this run went well. Once again, my legs were sore at the start, but they eventually loosened up, allowing me to increase my pace slightly during the second half. At the moderate pace, I felt strong and had no trouble maintaining it without exerting myself too much.

Towards the end, I did experience some discomfort in my right foot, however, I pushed through and completed the run, covering a total distance of 13.8km.

Thursday May 30

Off

Friday May 31

Due to a shorter build-up for my upcoming race, caused by recent injury, I am trying out a new strategy to quickly build up my fitness. The idea is to reduce the volume during workouts but increase their intensity, specifically during hill sessions. This way I can recover quickly and be able to get in higher volume on easy days. Following this idea, the workout this day consisted of one rep each of Nicole’s Ascent and the segment from Water Main to Trans Canada Trail.

Starting off Nicole’s, I felt reasonably good. My legs had some pop, which made the lower grade sections pretty comfortable. Although the steep portions were challenging towards the end, I managed to push through despite having to stop a few times before completing the ascent.

The second rep had multiple rolling hills, but was predominantly downhill. Despite this, my legs were really fatigued from the first rep, so I focused solely on just finishing the workout, which I ultimately managed to do.

These two intervals spanned 2.7km and about 200m of climbing, contributing to a cumulative session volume of 12.3km and 308m of elevation about.

Saturday June 1

After the previous day’s hard workout, my legs were still fatigued, leading to a significantly slower recovery run compared to the prior week. Nonetheless, I kept it easy the entire time, while experiencing minimal discomfort from my injuries, which was good to see. Ultimately, the run covered a distance of 6.8km.

Sunday June 2