avondale
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2017
Week of Dec. 11 - 17, 2023
This week was the nineteenth and PEAK week of the training plan for my next race: Harbison 50k in South Carolina on January 7. This week and last week had the same long run, which is my longest training run ever: 6 hours. The guidance I've been following for training for trail races is for long races to train up to about 75% of the time you expect it will take you to finish the race. I think I should be able to do it in 7.5 hours, but definitely 8 hours. (Garmin optimistically says 6.5 hours. Ha!) After this week, I start tapering. After the long run that I did this week, I have no doubt about finishing the 50k - it's more a question of time and how good I feel doing it.
Monday after work: walk on treadmill
Health
The headache is slowly improving. Depends on the day.
Knees: I mentioned this above. When I wrote about my LR last week, my knees and legs were sore, but I didn't realize the extent. I've had mild patellofemoral problems (runner's knee) for awhile, but last week's long run just killed them, especially my left knee. I want to blame the pavement pounding and lack of variety in the terrain/surface (both in contrast to trails), but I don't know that that was it. My knees could barely support me going up or down stairs, and I had difficulty bending them fully. For the left knee, I felt like I might have strained something both in the front and back. At any rate, it was improving very slowly for a few days after the long run - the right knee improving faster. After a couple days, I remembered that I had a knee sleeve from many years ago. I tried that on the left knee, and it helped almost like magic! It has a hole for the knee cap, and I think it helped keep the knee cap aligned better and also gave some compression to the reset of the joint.
At any rate, by the following weekend (the end of the week I'm writing about in this entry), it was very much improved. I obviously did the long run for this week, and it didn't hit me nearly so hard (I don't run with the knee sleeve because it's really annoying), so this is good. I got a patellar strap with a knee cap cut-out support to try for the future, but it didn't arrive in time for my LR this past weekend.
I've started some VMO exercises and targeted strengthening for patellofemoral issues, but I know a big contributor is just the number of miles I'm putting on, so it should improve much more quickly after my race.
This week was the nineteenth and PEAK week of the training plan for my next race: Harbison 50k in South Carolina on January 7. This week and last week had the same long run, which is my longest training run ever: 6 hours. The guidance I've been following for training for trail races is for long races to train up to about 75% of the time you expect it will take you to finish the race. I think I should be able to do it in 7.5 hours, but definitely 8 hours. (Garmin optimistically says 6.5 hours. Ha!) After this week, I start tapering. After the long run that I did this week, I have no doubt about finishing the 50k - it's more a question of time and how good I feel doing it.
Monday after work: walk on treadmill
- time: 43:06
- distance: 2.1 mi
- ave pace: 20:32
- incline: 0%
- comments: My knees were killing me in general - see below. They were ok for walking gently.
- Before breakfast: foam rolling and stretching
- After work:
- 60 min easy
- T+D 69, no effect, T 41 F
- time: 1:00:01
- distance: 4.75 mi
- average pace: 12:38 (GAP ave pace 12:31)
- splits: 12:30, 12:47, 12:43, 12:17, 13:00
- ave HR: 132 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 304 ft (corrected)
- route: neighborhood loop 1
- comments: My legs were definitely still quite tired and sore.
- 60 min easy
- Hill repeat HIIT: 13min easy + 3 x [7 x {20sec sprint uphill + 20sec walk downhill) + 4min walk downhill]
- T+D 63, no effect, T 41 F
- time: 40:00
- distance: 2.95 mi
- repeat splits: 8:29, 9:09, 9:20, 7:52, 8:05, 9:05, 9:31, 8:01, 8:40, 8:17, 8:10, 8:23, 9:06, 9:30, 7:41, 8:10, 8:36, 8:43, 8:57, 9:14, 9:16.
- elevation gain: 196 ft (corrected)
- route: neighborhood loop 1
- comments: I take these splits with a huge grain of salt! I think they were too short for the GPS to necessarily track well. The point was to be going all-out. I was sprinting uphill, then turning and walking downhill for about 15 sec before using the last 5 sec of walking to get turned around uphill again. It takes me 7 intervals to get to the top of the hill, and so that's when I have the 4-min walk back down to the bottom.
- Before breakfast: core workout
- 60-s plank
- 20 starfish
- 20 dead bug
- 30 sec fast feet
- 20 slo-mo mountain climbers
- 20 each side flutter kicks
- 30 sec fast feet
- 20 bicycle crunch with hold
- 5 10-s hollow-body holds
- 30 sec fast feet
- 2 30-s side planks
- 20 double leg lift/lowers
- 30 sec fast feet
- After work:
- 60 min easy
- T+D 62, no effect, T 43 F
- time: 1:00:00
- distance: 4.96 mi
- average pace: 12:06 (GAP ave pace 12:06)
- splits: 12:12, 12:24, 11:51, 12:03, 12:01
- ave HR: 135 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 155 ft (corrected)
- route: Sligo Creek Trail
- 60 min easy
- Before breakfast: mobility work and stretching
- After dinner: walk on treadmill
- time: 43:43
- distance: 2.23 mi
- ave pace: 19:36
- incline: 0%
- 90 min easy on trail
- T+D 88, no effect, T 58 F
- time: 1:30:00
- distance: 6.42 mi
- average pace: 14:02 (GAP ave pace 13:12)
- splits: 13:57, 14:50, 14:03, 13:51, 13:23, 14:31, 13:02
- ave HR: 134 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 858 ft (corrected)
- route: Western Ridge Trail, Rock Creek National Park
- comments: It's unusual for me to do only one activity on a Saturday, but I had to give my final exam in the middle of the day.
- 360 min LR on trail
- T+D 94, no effect, T 47 F, rained in the last 2 hours!
- time: 6:00:04
- distance: 24.78 mi
- average pace: ~14:35 (see below)
- splits: 15:16, 14:21, 14:00, 13:50, 13:47, 14:08, 14:16, 14:46, 14:07, 13:55, 14:28, 13:59, 14:21, 15:25, 14:56, 13:44, 14:53, 14:29, 14:54, 14:22, 15:23, 15:00, 14:58, 14:09, 15:35, 14:49
- ave HR: 137 BPM - below my target range
- elevation gain: 1859 ft (corrected)
- route: Seneca Greenway Trail
- comments: I accidentally saved this at 19.38 miles, so the run is split into two parts on my Garmin! Grrr! The stats like average pace and HR are approximate, and that's why there are extra splits.
- comments: Originally the forecast called for rain throughout the day, but fortunately it held off until the last two hours. Got some sprinkles and showers and then in the last 30 minutes it started to rain pretty hard.
- comments: I had to start at a different trailhead than I usually do because my normal trailhead doesn't open as early as I needed to start. Usually I start at the northernmost point, run all the way south for halfway in time, and then run back. This time, I started about 2/3 of the way "down" the route, ran north to the end and back, then ran south a bit and back. It was kind of weird hitting my usual landmarks in a different order and with different amounts of tiredness.
- comments: I took 1.5 L water + Nuun and 2 L of water and drank most of it gradually throughout. I ate two Honey Stinger waffles, two servings of Teddy Grahams, two servings of M&Ms, and a sleeve of Clif Bloks. Because I passed my car this time (unlike usual), I didn't have to carry everything the whole time and did a change out of some items, which was nice.
- comments: Mentally, this was SO MUCH BETTER than running on the much more monotonous paved trail that I did the week before, even though that trail is very nice. There is much more of a range of different scenery, terrain, hills, etc. Also farther from traffic noise and fewer other people. This run overall went very well!
- comments: The downside of the "real" trail is no port-a-potties. I got so scratched up by thorns while bushwhacking several times to get off-trail to go, LOL! And that's why I was paused - and then accidentally hit the save button - during the run.
Health
The headache is slowly improving. Depends on the day.
Knees: I mentioned this above. When I wrote about my LR last week, my knees and legs were sore, but I didn't realize the extent. I've had mild patellofemoral problems (runner's knee) for awhile, but last week's long run just killed them, especially my left knee. I want to blame the pavement pounding and lack of variety in the terrain/surface (both in contrast to trails), but I don't know that that was it. My knees could barely support me going up or down stairs, and I had difficulty bending them fully. For the left knee, I felt like I might have strained something both in the front and back. At any rate, it was improving very slowly for a few days after the long run - the right knee improving faster. After a couple days, I remembered that I had a knee sleeve from many years ago. I tried that on the left knee, and it helped almost like magic! It has a hole for the knee cap, and I think it helped keep the knee cap aligned better and also gave some compression to the reset of the joint.
At any rate, by the following weekend (the end of the week I'm writing about in this entry), it was very much improved. I obviously did the long run for this week, and it didn't hit me nearly so hard (I don't run with the knee sleeve because it's really annoying), so this is good. I got a patellar strap with a knee cap cut-out support to try for the future, but it didn't arrive in time for my LR this past weekend.
I've started some VMO exercises and targeted strengthening for patellofemoral issues, but I know a big contributor is just the number of miles I'm putting on, so it should improve much more quickly after my race.
