Here’s a nice diagram explaining all my excuses for why my running has been abysmal for the past month.

That’s not to say the runs themselves have been awful, just the amount of mileage I’ve been doing. I actually had a decent speed work day last week. And I got a PR at Saturday’s race (Strava only shows 2.6 miles instead of 3.1 because my watch didn’t work for the first half mile).

But this week is different. It’s time to ramp back up to 20-30 miles per week again to get ready for my next goal half. No more excuses!

Monday: sick
Tuesday: recovering from being sick
Wednesday: still recovering
Thursday: 3 miles (11:29 avg pace)
Friday: rest day
Saturday: Hot Chocolate 15k (9:45 avg pace)
Sunday: rest day

This week didn’t start with much running because of the aforementioned stomach bug I had gotten on Saturday. Since I hadn’t really eaten in a few days (and what I did eat didn’t really stay down), I was pretty weak for a few days after I finally recovered and I abstained from running for that reason.

I finally got out on Thursday evening, when it was, of course, freezing. I just did a few miles of easy intervals with the group to get back at it before the race on Saturday.

The race went well. I’ll be posting a recap soon. But I did take Sunday off too to recover from it.

Monday: rest day
Tuesday: 6.8 miles (11:03 avg pace)
Wednesday: 12x400m fast – 5.8 miles total (10:40 avg pace)
Thursday: rest day
Friday: rest day
Saturday: Cedars Frostbite Half Marathon – 13mi “training” run (10:10 avg pace)
Sunday: rest day – sick

This week got a little wonky. I originally rearranged it so that I could run outside with the Flyers twice this week. But then I found out (on Wednesday) that we had Preds tickets for Thursday (wasn’t on our half season plan, thus why I didn’t know). And I don’t like running on Fridays.

The leg heaviness from last week continued this week. My speed work on the treadmill on Wednesday was absolute torture. I didn’t think I could make it through. But I did.

You would think, since I had two days of rest before the half, that my legs wouldn’t be as heavy. But they still were. And I still managed to beat my time goal for the year anyway. I don’t know what to do with myself now.

Unfortunately, around 5pm or so on Saturday night, I started feeling bad. I don’t know if it was a stomach bug or what, but I basically spent Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday in the bathroom. Thus, no running on Sunday.

Better late than never, right?

Monday: 6 miles (11:13 avg pace)
Tuesday: rest day
Wednesday: 10x800m – 7.2 miles total (10:37 avg pace)
Thursday: 3.1 miles (11:08 avg pace)
Friday: rest day
Saturday: 5.5 miles (10:54 avg pace)
Sunday: 8 miles (10:27 avg pace)

This week started out with a lot of muscle soreness. That relatively speedy 11 miler last week really got me. Since I had to move my schedule around this week to accommodate a Preds game on Tuesday, I chose to do an easy run on Monday for recovery.

Wednesday’s speedwork went well, but the soreness lingered. My legs felt so heavy and tired on Saturday that I cut my run a half mile short (okay, the fact that I didn’t have water and the loop I was running was 2.75 miles long both may have played into that as well).

So, I was surprised that my legs felt relatively okay going into Sunday’s long run. I actually felt pretty strong for all eight miles.

“You were supposed to do twelve miles, though!” you might say.

Yes, even though my legs felt fine, I still cut my long run short this week. I had several different reasons for doing so, but the main ones were:
a. I started experiencing some major GI discomfort right at the time I circled back to my car before heading out on the last 4 mile leg of the run.
b. I was concerned with overtraining because of how I had felt all week.
c. I was worried about a time crunch to make queso before the Super Bowl.

I’m no stranger to overtraining, and I knew going into this plan that it was pretty aggressive. (I mean, several 30+ mile weeks in a row when I’ve never run a 30 mile week before?) I decided that it was probably smarter to cut this week a little short so that I could focus more on my training half next weekend (my dress rehearsal).

That said, since I did cut it short, I only got to try one of the new Huma flavors. I went for apples and cinnamon, which was pretty good. I don’t think it was the cause of my GI issues, as I already had some discomfort before even starting the run. Oh well.