Training Log Entry 9: July 24 - 30, 2023

Monday July 24

Off

Tuesday July 25

I planned out a new loop route, which I tried out during this run. The route follows some old access roads that I ran down once a few years ago. At the start of the road, there is a sign stating that a bridge is closed. However, I remember seeing that sign the last time, and it was only inaccessible for cars.

Everything went well at the beginning. There was a bit a flooding on the road, but other than that, it was going smoothly. That was until I reached the bridge and discovered that it was completely gone now. The recent heavy rain had cause the water level to rise, and a wooden crossing had been dislodged and sent downstream. If the water level wasn’t high, I’m fairly sure I could have crossed it.

After seeing the bridge, I went back to the start and finished the rest of the run on the trail. This part was really smooth. I got into a nice, easy rhythm and finished 9.1km very smoothly.

Wednesday July 26

For this day’s workout, I tried to do the 5km threshold, which I failed to do a few weeks back. I did this workout on the roads by Riverport, so the entire route was on pavement and it had a few hills.

I didn’t feel the best from the start, but it wasn’t too bad. The first few kilometers were the most hilly, so I knew that once I got through them, the ending would be easier. However, a little over 3km in, I had a very unexpected breathing spasm that forced me to stop. It was fairly minor, but it once again stopped me from completing the full 5km all the way through, which was extremely disappointing.

After a couple of minutes, I started up again to finish the rest of the 5km. During the last part, I was hurting quite a bit because of breathing still being off from earlier.

I finished up the threshold with an average pace of 5:17/km. Including the warm-up and cool-down, the total mileage for the day was 11.7km.

Thursday July 27

I decided to do my easy day this day at the MARC to get a decent amount of climbing in. Overall, the run went well. I took it very easy and walked some hills just to keep the effort level low. The run ended up being 8.4km with 170m of climbing. I had initially planned on getting more mileage, but my time on feet was already getting up their for the day.

Friday July 28

For this session, I tried a type of workout that I had never done before. The workout was 6x1km, with a pick-up between 400m to 600m. I discovered this workout from a recent Sweat Elite video. My target times were 4:00-4:05/km pace for the beginning and end segments, and 3:20-3:30/km (40-42s) for the pick-ups.

I wanted to make sure the easy sections were on pace, so I closely payed attention to my watch to avoid starting too fast or slowing down at the end. The paces were good for the easy sections, but there were some reps where I started a bit too fast. For the 200m pick-ups, I did speed up in all of them, but the actual paces were slower than I planned, averaging 44s. Looking back, my target pace was probably a bit too ambitious, so I am fine with how it went.

The splits for the 1k’s were 3:56, 3:58, 3:53, 3:46, 4:00 and 3:55, averaging to 3:55. I really enjoyed this workout since the pace changes made the reps feel short. Only the last 400m of a few reps felt challenging, but those sections forced to stay engaged and keep the pace honest after the pick-ups.

Altogether, I did 15.3km for the day, which was longer than I had planned but helped offset the shorted run the day before.

Saturday July 29

My legs felt extremely tired this day. However, I still managed to do a easy 5.5km. For the entire run, I never really felt that good.

Sunday July 30

My legs still felt heavy this morning, so I was unsure about what to do for this week’s long run. Ultimately, I decided to go for a relaxed, longer run.

I did my regular loop route starting from the trail at Glen Allen Drive. The first ~5km didn’t feel that great, but after walking up some of the steep hills, I got into a comfortable rhythm and felt good for the rest of the run.

I finished the loop at about 15.5km and added on an extra bit to finish the run at 17.75km. It feels good that my long runs are actually starting to get longer again.

This brought my weekly mileage to 67.7km with 600m of elevation gain. Since my injuries haven’t been bothering me as much lately, I thinking of increasing my mileage a bit faster over the next few weeks.