My second week of training has passed, and although I’m only in Week 2, I’m moving out of my prep period into my first 4 week base period. I wasn’t able to get in my full 10 hours this week. I totaled a little less than 9 hours. I missed out on my long weekend.
My workout summary for the week is below (plus two hours of weights, which I don’t keep track of in my profile). I ran 4 times, three barefoot in my Vibrams and the last one in the hills of Oakland. As you can see, the elevation gain was crazy. That was just one run. I have video of this below. My calves still hurt, but they hurt less. I was able to get through over an hour of running in the hills without wincing in calf pain, so I figure that’s a good thing. I’m feeling better about my running, but changing my stride (from overstriding) is definitely two steps back to take three steps forward. I just hope its the right move.
I did one long bike ride, and I’m disappointed that’s the only ride I got in. I setup my trainer this evening though, so I hope I can do rides in the comfort of my balcony or living room in the evenings/mornings. Even if I ride for 45 minutes to an hour, I can work on settling into aero position for longer duration and on my pedaling/force skills.
For swimming, I didn’t get in as much pool time as I would of liked. About 1:10 minutes. This was entirely kicking drills, and I’m now at the point where I feel comfortable staying balanced on my sides, stomach and back. I just have to start actually swimming. I almost instantly sink on one side when I bring my arms up. This is definitely a work in process, but I’m making progress.
Here are my ruminations for the week – not as many as my mind wandered a lot less. Things have been getting busy at work
- How does flexibility in my shoulders impact my swim? Because I’m not flexible, and my shoulders hurt after I swim
- When you look at the views below for an entire run, it’s so easy to forget you’re actually working out
- I trained for about 8 hours each of the last two weeks. This is my PREP period, meaning easy. I checked my running logs for this year, and the most I worked out in a week was 9.5 hours, which was peak week for marathon. This season is going to be gnarly. The next three weeks go 12 hours, 14.5 hours, 16 hours. That is some serious training!!
- I finished Brain Training for Runners this week – awesome read. I recommend it to everyone. Learned quite a few things, including that sitting for 8 hours a day is resulting in tight hip flexors and that slows me down. I need to supplement my running with core strength, flexibility, running drills, and power exercises. Proprioceptive cues ROCK – everyone should use these. Running injuries will occur more frequently if I overstride
- Now I’m moving on to Born to Run. Finally more of a story!
- I’ve decided to focus on five things: family/friends, Adrienne, work, training, video games. If I try to do more, I’ll go crazy! All my crazy desires to learn more things have to be set aside if I want to really be serious about those 4 things, with video games being my distraction.
- Others are running marathons this weekend. I wish them luck, and I’m so happy I’m not!
- I can see why people need time off at the end of the season! Training wears you down
That’s it for this week. Hope you’re training is going well!
Here are my videos from the weekend
This was surprisingly only about 3/4 up the hill
This was at the peak of the hills I climbed
