This week looked tough! After reviewing my plan I got kinda scared. 3 big runs, not really in intensity - at least not the first 2 - but a way more volume! With a pretty good workout on Thursday, 2 strength sessions and stupid mtn legs after every run :D. This is gonna be interesting. But after what I thought was a light week, I was ready to go!
I was expecting running into a beautiful sunset and that's why I chose the route I did. But the sun was already behind clouds that weren't there 30mins earlier 😬. I was thinking about changing it but thought it's gonna be just fine. Was planning an out&back but then changed it again to a loop. Bad choice. It was so much more uphill than it was flat 😅🤣. The first 30mins were okay but my legs felt kinda tired and heavy. Like I was expecting being fresh and just cruisin but I had to work for it. After the 10mins WU I focused on breathing just through my nose (don't really even know why). Which I did until 32mins in and little bit after that too. My left leg felt bit weird today too - first my knee started to hurt, then my hip and finished with calf 😅. It went away tho. I was running in my newer shoes, so that could be the reason too. Strides also felt bit harder than usual and I went about 10mins more than I should've 🤷♀️. Nice shuffle home and then mountain legs to finish it off. Ugh. Till tomorrow......
Wednesday started with strength. Sometimes I do remember to write down my session the day before so I don't have to guess and try to do it last minute in the morning, but today was not the day. So I quickly put together a workout. That being said, I usually end up with all the same exercises every time, changing just a little bit here and there. I'm really not very good at this. I was supposed to do 45mins but ended up with an hour - that also included 6mins warmup and about 5mins cool down. I'm gonna feel this one later for sure. I had 60mins easy run on my plan too. Oddly it felt hard, the first 15mins especially and I took it actually easy. I was kinda like WTF? I barely did anything, I should feel way better. It got little bit easier as it went on but the last 15mins or so were again, hard. And don't even get me started on mtn legs :D.
I have the best coach tho. When we first talked I told him I don't wanna be told after every run that I did good. I'd rather hear where I could improve on that run. I want to earn that "good job". I wanna hear it, when I actually deserve it. But he somehow knows when exactly is the right time to say something positive and encouraging. Like today...
Thursday was my big workout for the week. 3x intervals of 5mins. Last time I did 3mins intervals so this was a bit bigger jump. Reminded me of coach G. He had also these stupid ideas :D. After 2 kinda hard runs I was not very excited and bit worried how that's gonna go. I had everything planned. On my way from work, I ate a snack and just before I got home I drank some of my Rviita tea to get some extra energy! I was planning to go right away. But.....my husband asked if we are taking Piglet for a walk which he almost never does. So we went for a walk first and my whole plan went out the window hah. I had 30mins easy first, which I took very easy to see how I feel. My headphones disconnected from my phone about 20mins in and would not connect back again so that was pretty annoying considering I was about to run some intervals where music can really help. Too bad for me. It was just me and my breath :D. Went bit slower on the first one to see if I can push bit more on the other ones or not really. It felt tough but not too hard. I also brought some Nerd Clusters to fuel between intervals. Which at first seemed like a great idea... Second one was definitely faster but still felt like I wasn't completely dying. The plan was to run them all about the same pace. Third felt really hard but that's also because I went bit too fast in the beginning and then started to fade. Could I do another one? Probably but definitely not at the same pace. I was happy with how I did. Not as pumped as last week but it felt like I executed the workout just fine.
When my alarm went off at 4:30am on Friday morning I was definitely debating if I really wanna do this strength and maybe I can just move it to the evening but then I thought I'd not do it later and also wanted more recovery after. So laid in the bed for another 15mins and then finally got up and did the freakin thing. Bit different than usual. Did 15mins of some pilates and then some core and shoulder exercises. Everything felt hard, I felt weak and tired. But finished it and then did some yoga in the evening.
I was not excited about this run at all. Who the heck wants to run Braggin/Merlin Loop twice!? Definitely not me...I wanted to ask Evan many times through the week if we could change it to something else but then I thought if it's there, it has a reason so keep your mouth shut and just fuckin do it! I knew it's gonna suck but it's gotta be done. Waking up at 4:30am because of the dog wasn't the best start to the day 😅. But here we go, loop 1: I didn't feel great, I didn't feel rested and I definitely didn't run as much as I should. Eventually I warmed up but it was just meh. I was using Never2 again but cut it a bit so only had about 70g carb/bottle. I felt like it wasn't enough? But also my stomach wasn't very happy. I felt like I just wanna go home after I reached the parking lot again 😅. Stomach was feeling weird. I had 2 gels but with both I had really hard time getting them down and especially on the second way around it felt like it's not going down, even fluids were kinda just stuck half way or it felt like it. The first K on the second loop was terrible. Then at about 1.5K I felt like I can't powerhike anymore, I just wanted to stop but for whatever reason, I could slowly jog. I jogged at spots that I didn't the first loop, so weird. But forward is a pace I kept reminding myself. Stomach was unfortunately getting worse and I had to have a stop again. I felt better afterwards but not really. Couldn't really have anything after that, I felt like shit honestly. I was so defeated. Like I think I work pretty hard, I do everything like I'm told to, I follow my plan but this fuckin nutrition ... I just can't win! I thought that the Never2 would work for me but clearly not (a note: maybe it was the dinner last night, or maybe I should not add lemon juice in the high carb mix 🤣). It's just so frustrating when something works few times and then it just doesn't. I do hate running still, but I kinda like it a lot too but it seems like it doesn't really like me and running long distances on pretty much nothing is very impossible. I haven't felt this bad after a run in long time.
Lying in the bed yesterday and feeling like crap, I was thinking I'm not even gonna go for that recovery shuffle, I felt awful. But I did set up the alarm, just in case. I felt kinda okay when I woke up so did my routine, some yoga and mobility and got ready to go. Didn't really realize that the time changed so I'd be running in the dark probably 😅. The first few mins felt obviously hard. But I took it easy and settled into slow pace. Before I went I checked how many K's I ran this week so far - 61K. And I thought There is no way I'm doing 9K to make it to the 70K mark. I was also supposed to run only for 60mins - slowly! But as I went on, I felt really good, I was actually enjoying this slow pace. And thought, Oh yeah 9K definitely doable! I'm not gonna finish this week with just 1K shy of my top mileage! 😅 the last 10mins or so were bit questionable but I made it 🤘. 70K of running this week, whoa!
But that wasn't it. I also needed to take Piglet for a hike. So picked something short. My legs were screaming at me on that uphill tho 😅. About 20mins into the hike, I felt this intense pain in my left foot. At first I thought something got stuck in my shoe so I checked but there was nothing, so I thought maybe it's my spikes pressing there but that wasn't it either. It hurt but I didn't pay that much attention to it cause I could still walk and it wasn't that bad. Finished the hike and then as soon as I sat down in my car I took my sock off. It was definitely swollen and very sore in one spot. My lower leg then started to be painful on my drive home. At first I was like Oh it's gonna be fine. But then, because of my training and also how my broken hand turned out 2 years ago (the feeling was very similar and I could move my hand too, it was really painful only if I touched it where it was broken and a certain movement or two), so I decided to get it checked. Went to Urgent Care, spent there about 3.5hrs and walked away with referral to a bone scan - I think I was kinda lucky because the doctor that came in to check my foot was also a runner - well actually a triathlete - and I explained to him I'm there mainly because of my training, I need to know if I should stop running or not. And he said if its a stress fracture, it won't show on those xrays and so I would have to go for the scan. So now I wait until I can get the scan...will see how it feels tomorrow tho. Fingers crossed it's nothing.
Comments
Post a Comment