Training Log Entry 5: June 26 - July 2, 2023

Monday June 26

Off

Tuesday June 27

Off. My left calf and right knee were really sore so I decided to take an extra day off.

Wednesday June 28

My calf and knee felt sightly better this morning, so I decided to test them out with a slow run. I didn’t feel very good during this run. The humidity was at 99%, making breathing quite difficult and forced me to take a few breaks. Both my calf and knee weren’t feeling too good, so I didn’t go further than 8km.

Thursday June 29

Again, my calf and knee felt slightly better than the previous day, so I planned to do an easy 10km.

I decided to run on the paths near the power lines that I discovered a few weeks ago because the rough terrain would naturally slow me down. The first 1km was entirely uphill to the trail, and just as I reached the top, I experienced a breathing spasm. It took a few minutes to get my breathing under control, but due to the humidity, I never felt completely comfortable for the rest of the run. Once I started back up, I soon discovered that the trail was completely flooded. I tried an alternate path to get around the flooded areas, but it ended up being a dead end. Therefore, I decided to leave the area and get back on the roads.

I found myself along Lower Branch Road, and since I had already ascended part of it, I decided to go to top of this hill, which is an elevation gain of ~100m over a little over 2km. My legs felt quite good as I went up at a reasonable pace, but my breathing was struggling, leading me to take a couple breaks during the climb. Both my calf and knee didn’t respond well to the downhill, so I had to take the descend fairly slow. My original plan was to tag on a bit on the trail to reach 10km, but I started feeling light-headed due to the heat, forcing me to stop there.

In the end, the run covered 7km with 150m of elevation gain.

Friday June 30

Since I’ve been struggling to sustain long efforts in the high humidity, I decided to do an interval workout this day. I’ve been meaning to do a speed workout anyways, since I’ve been feeling a bit flat these past few weeks.

The workout consisted of 10x400m with 1:30-2’ rest and a 5’ set break. I ended taking the set break after the 6th rep because that ended me on the side where my gear was. I chose to run this workout on Mayfair Drive, a very flat residential road that is a bit over 600m long and has virtually no traffic. Despite the humidity being over 95%, this morning it was misty which definitely helped a lot.

Overall, I am very happy with the workout. I wore my Prime X’s for the workout, and although they never irritated my foot like last time, they didn’t feel extremely comfortable while running at a higher cadence. Nevertheless, I maintained even splits between 78-83 seconds (majority of which were 81-83) and averaged 82 seconds. What I’m most happy about is how I stuck with the 1:30-2’ rest between reps, with only the last 2 reps going a few seconds over. Surprising, I didn’t have any issues with my calf, but I could feel my knee during the later reps.

I really want to get some of my speed back, so I think I will add on a few quick reps at the end of my fartlet and tempo days.

I had a long warm-up and cool-down, so the total volume for the day ended up being 13.7km.

Saturday July 1

I felt pretty good this day, the best I’ve felt after a Friday workout in a while. However, because of the humidity, it was difficult to keep by breathing relaxed. I ended up going 5.7km for the day. Although my knee is still causing some trouble, wearing a knee strap helps alleviate most of the pain while running.

Sunday July 2

I was really unsure about what I wanted to do for this day’s long run. It was still humid, so I didn’t want to do a fast long run. But with how my knee and calf were feeling, I didn’t want to risk aggravating them with an excessively long run. In the end, I decided on doing the loop route starting from Glen Allan and go by feel, running fast if I felt good and taking breaks when needed.

Luckily, it started to rain early on during the run, so the humidity didn’t bother me as much. I took the beginning conservatively, and then walked most of the two steep hills at around the 5km mark. I also took downhills easy, but since it wasn’t bothering my knee significantly I was able to pick up the pace when the grade wasn’t too steep.

Because of the shoes I was wearing, I avoided the rocky sections of the trail and took a slight detour on the road. Along the way, I scoped out alternative routes to access the LaHave trail. It seems there is a fairly straightforward path through a wooded area that could bridge the two disjointed trails. The trail adjacent to the highway is relatively new, so I hope they will eventually create a better connection to avoid having to run alongside the road.

Once I got back into town, I took another break walking up a hill and then pushed the pace for the last relatively flat 3km. Both my knee and calf started to bother me a bit, but I managed to maintain a decent pace.

Surprising, when I finished the run, I saw that I had only covered 13.8km even though I initially expected the detours to make the route slightly longer. Regardless, I decided to call it a day at that point.

With this, the 5-day week concluded at 48km.