A continuation of my journeys in running, and more specifically what do I do now that my marathon has ended.

I need to get back to actually writing down my thoughts on my training as it happens rather than just recapping in retrospect. Most of these are however from my Dailymile recap, which works also.

Monday April 9

OFF DAY Nice relaxing off day, had a lunch ART appointment and we think we have isolated the foot issue

Tuesday April 10

PM Went to GVH and did a 1mi WU@E 2x2mi @HMP (7:38/7:25) and 1mi @HMP (7:35) with 2 min RECO in between sets. 1mi CD@E. The wind was blowing cold and strong at the end or else I would have pushed it to a 3×2. Felt weird for the first couple miles tonight but felt great on the final 3 miles. Left foot (the one ART dr is working on) was bugging me a bit when I slowed down. RTR 7/10

The run: GVH Tempo
1:01/7
RTR:7/10

Wednesday April 11

OFF DAY (unplanned) Totally screwed up here. A series of goofs by me made me miss my only window of opportunity to run shorting me mileage this week.

Thursday April 12

PM: 2 Part workout. Part 1 involved a trail run Preview of Medved Madness Leg 1. (4.04mi/37:14/401 EG) Part 2 was roughly 15 minutes later on the Panorama Trail hill, the closest I could get to a 1/2 mile at 7% grade. After a warmup to the bottom I ran 4 out of my planned 6 repeats. The plan was “comfortable pace” which I did until I hit number 4 and pushed everything I could as I knew it was the last one due to time/distance in for the night. Got some good hills in at Medved so I felt the night was just right, but I didn’t stress myself either. Ran 1/2 mile back home. RTR 7/10
1.08WU 9:45.3
.47Up 4:13.1/ .47Dn 4:35.1
.48Up 4:32.9/ .48Dn 4:37.6
.48Up 4:26.3/ .48Dn 4:48.7
.50Up 3:57.5
.53CD 5:09.7

The run: Medved Madness Leg 1
37:14/4.04
RTR:8/10

The run: Hill Repeats 7%
46:15/5
RTR:7/10

Friday April 13

PM: I don’t know what was up with this “run” embarrassed to even post it. Set out for a simple 8 mile run and barely got 2.5 in before I had to stop and walk due to feeling like I had to vomit. 2nd time in the last couple weeks I’ve felt like this. Stomach hurt since last nights run. Turned into a run when I could. Did what I could to keep it under 11/mi. RTR 1/10

The run: Easy Run
1:06/6.00
RTR: 1/10

Saturday April 14

AM: Took a nice easy pace and ran some of the big hills and walked some others just to get the legs some movement and bloodflow after yesterdays debacle. Went out with a group which helped me keep the pace down, ran with Chloe my trail dog who did great for being out there that long. Somehow Garmin got turned off and I ended up losing a mile on the turn around. Actual time was ~8mi/1:47 with 1200-1300 EG (don’t know how much was lost in the 1 mi shutdown) Great sunrise this AM RTR 7/10

The run : 8mi Trail
1:35/7
RTR: 7/10

Sunday April 15

PM: Adjusted Distance (Garmin is wrong) 13mi/2:50/2017EG The first half of this run went exactly as planned, I was running with efficiency and taking advantage of the longer downhills to bank time for the uphills. There were 2 major (1/2 mile plus steep grade) climbs that brought me to a slow walk that hurt my hamstrings to the point of burn and elevated my heart rate into R level. Did the first half in 1:16 and felt great, stopped at the turn around to down a PBJ wrap and get my bearings for 5 minutes then continued on with part 2. Somewhere around mile 3 my legs refused to be friends and this easy run was not being so kind. Took some fuel and nutrition to see if that would help, it didn’t. Then it started to rain and the trail got interesting. A couple more major climbs on the back and my legs were cooked. with 1 mile left till the 13 mile point I caught a root in the “Rootmine Graveyard” ( literally this section was filled for a mile of millions of roots) turned my foot and then nose planted onto my new sunglassees. Needless to say, I used every profanity I could think of to get my self back off the ground. 22 miles was no longer in the question, it was now a fight to finish this section. Made it back to the car, getting really cold and my ankle and foot throbbing. 2nd half with break: 1:34. I called it a day. Really disappointed in myself. I had everything set so when I made it back to the car I would restock and keep going to finish out the run, but I couldn’t. Not only did I fail at this run, I failed at this week. 20 miles under where I was supposed to be. I don’t know what has happened but it feels like I hit a wall. Maybe I pushed myself or over trained myself for my fitness in the previous month that it is catching up to me in waves, but I am not happy. Hopefully talking to Ian tomorrow will shed some knowledge or insight into what might be going on. RTR 5/10 (1st half 8/10 second half 3/10)

The run : Sehgahunda Leg 3 Out
1:16/6.1
RTR: 8/10

The run : Sehgahunda Leg 3 Back
1:34/6.25
RTR: 3/10

Recap / RTW: 5/10

Just a roller coaster of a week run wise. I had some really good runs but Friday and most of Sunday was a complete disaster. Missing Wednesday didn’t help me out much either.

Upcoming

Dirt Cheap trail race this week, Flowercity in a couple.

Sehgahunda Training

Now that I have run 3 out of the 4 legs of the course I can start evaluating where I stand and what I will need to do. Trying to develop some strategy now that I have learned some of the course and I know where I can speed up/slow down to keep on “pace”

I have a plan for Sehgahunda and that is to better my 1st (and only) Road marathon time for last year of 4:47. So I have my sights set on 4:45 (Yes ambitious I know….). To accomplish this I would need to keep a sub 10:50 pace which I believe for me on this course is very possible. I have been tracking the Outs & Backs separately and I’ve been conserving my energy so that I can accomplish my daily miles plan. With this in mind here are my breakdowns of each leg (again TP & GC have different elevation corrections to TP is first and GC second number in ()):

Leg 1: 6.1miles – 1:00 (EG 331/583) Mostly straight run

Leg 2: 9.3miles -1:45 (EG 684/1115) 4:1 Run walk

Leg 3: 6.5miles -1:16 (EG 636/990) 4:1 Run walk

Total time so far 4:01:43 (11:02/4:50) /21.9mi /EG 1651/2688

None of these have “aid station” stops worked in, but I have been practicing being as minimal and self sufficient as possible to save time. I forsee 1-2 min max for checkin and at the end of the 9.3 leg a water fill max 5min break. Don’t know if I can have a drop bag or not at half as that would save me time as I can prep my stuff for a quick transition to breeze through the other CP. The trick will be to just keep moving.

Total miles Run 43.19/ 8hr10min

Trail: 31
Road: 12
Treadmill:0! (YAY!)
Race:0 mi

TSS Score: 427.8

Weight: 156

Elevation Gain: I’m going to start posting the Training Peaks “elevation correction” & the Garmin “elevation Correction” from now on….

TPEC: 3205
GCEG: 4451

Either way it is my highest EG in a week ever and most came over 2 days.