Goal according to my plan: 47km
Actual: 28.7km
If you missed the first article in this series, click here for details on my race.
Week six was supposed to be a lower mileage week but I had so much calf pain I ended up decreasing it even more than planned. New strategies on deck for week seven!
Monday - Treadmill 4km
On Monday I tried to do 45 minute a Peloton endurance run with rolling hills and learned a valuable lesson about not eating too soon before I run. I was totally queasy and will not be doing that again.
Tuesday - 4.25km
Tuesday started with 20 min of skipping, squats and other leg strength exercises. I actually find these skipping workouts a nice calm way to start a morning.
In the afternoon I did a 4.26km run outdoors (7’20/km). Not fun - tight tight tight calf muscles!
Wednesday - Treadmill 6.5km
I started out with the 20 min Peloton Global Running Day run, then added an extra 25 min while watching Greys Anatomy for a total of 6.5km (7’04/km). Started out sore but then felt pretty good towards the end.
Thursday - Sore sore sore!
Had pain even walking, so I skipped the day.
Friday - Still sore.
Friday was a planned rest day but I did a quick 5min of skipping to try to shake out the pain (unsuccessfully).
Saturday - 5.65km
After two days off I was hoping to turn it around with a decent length run on Saturday, but oh man! I just felt like I was lumbering along the road. A total of 5.65km (8’27/km) at a slow pace. Not fun.
Sunday - 8.3km
Better! Given Saturday’s pain, my plan was to hike on Sunday morning. I switched out my new HOKA for my old Altras, and low and behold! the pain vanished enough to do a fairly respectable run/walk on the trails. Total of 8.3km (8’56/km) on absolutely gorgeous trails at dawn. Slow but at least it didn’t feel lumbering.
The unfortunate trade off of seeing incredible sunrise views is mosquitos. I have no fewer than 40 mosquito bites down the back of my legs and will be procuring better running pants as soon as is humanly possible.
The new plan
After so much pain this week I’ve decided to do a few things differently for the next couple weeks. As a scientist I’d love to do them one at a time, but with September race day looming, I don’t have that much time to spare, so:
More run/walk breaks for a couple weeks to make sure that I have really built up the necessary leg muscles.
Goodbye Hoka — going back to my old Altras for a couple weeks and hopefully to get fitted for new shoes when the shops reopen.
Strength exercises — going to give the calf exercises in Cool Impossible a try. They actually look a lot like the exercises I used to do for skating so maybe my muscles will jump back into shape with ease.
Cycling - I’m going to replace one of my shorter runs this week with cycling just to keep the pressure off.
A final lesson from the week:
Chafing is no joke. Dear Under Armour — no one wants ruffles on the outside of a sports bra that will run underneath your arms. Thanks.
