Training Update: Week Five [Ups & Downs]

January 16, 2015 by todd 4 Comments

I’m late on week five. I think it’s because I didn’t really want to talk about it.

It started as the best week in a long, long time. It ended with me wishing that the whole thing had never happened.

The beginning? Phoenix. I traveled out there for work on Sunday, just a couple of hours after the Sunday recovery run of my low-intensity week. Looking at a map of the area around my hotel before I flew out, I noticed a mountain park only a mile-and-a-half away. As far as I could tell, that park included trails. For someone who lives in the east and runs mostly on roads–but is always reading about glorious western trail running…well, I was excited to get there.

So, Monday morning, I headed out early for a run. Early on the day that is normally my rest day. Early on the day after I had had a long flight and gotten to bed very late, never mind the time change.

Man, was I thrilled. I had a chance to watch the sun rise from the top of Phoenix. I had the chance to push myself up and then down technical trails. A whole different running experience for me. All of it in dry warmth in the middle of January.

So I did it again on Tuesday. And then, for some reason, I got up early on Wednesday, too, to run on the hotel treadmill before my early flight. The forecast for home on Thursday looked brutally cold, so I thought I’d shoot for that as a day off.

Back home on Friday, the snow was coming down and I wasn’t looking forward to sharing the roads with all that snow and drivers trying to avoid it.

Inspired by my western trail adventures, I headed for some trails in town. I hadn’t run them much before, and never in the winter, but it seemed a perfect day for it. And, while I was out there, it was perfect. The snow and the trail itself made a little bit higher intensity than I was looking for, but it was beautiful. Peaceful.

And then it all fell apart.

I headed out Saturday morning for my planned 14 mile long run. By the time I hit the end of our street, a little more than a tenth of a mile, I knew I wasn’t right. My heart rate was already pushing 140, where usually it’s no higher than the high 120’s. As I ran up the first gentle hill, I had to go slower and slower to keep my heart rate down. A mile in, and I knew I’d be turning left at the first opportunity, making this a five-mile recovery run instead of a fourteen mile long run.

I never cut runs short.

I knew also that it didn’t make sense to run the next day, and with a gymnastics tournament for my daughter, I wouldn’t be able to fit it in anyway. Combine that with my usual Monday off, and I would have two days to recover.

I kept thinking about those amazing Phoenix climbs, how I made them a part of five days of consecutive running–something I’ve done only once before. What else could have fatigued me to bring this on? That trail run in the snow in the same week, meaning no easy runs in the week, probably didn’t help.

And I knew I had two days to think about it.

nothing long about that…

Eats & Drinks: I had taken my hand-held bottle on the aborted long run, trying to get a feel for running with it, assuming that is what I’ll use for any ultra I run. The five miles it went didn’t quite constitute a test.

Milestones: 

• Climb in a two-day period: 1831 feet (I had to find something)

Next Week’s Targets: Really, just getting back on track. Running forty miles at decent, recovered, lower heart rates, with a sixteen mile long run.