Grandma's is less than three weeks away and I am a little concerned that my longest run for it will be last week's 18 miler. At this point I need to concede that I have skipped enough of my training mileage that the race outcome is going to be affected, hopefully just in the ease of which I finish, not by my goal time or whether I finish at all. A side by side comparison tells me that I do have more hay in the barn this time around than I did for Twin Cities in 2012; hopefully I will enjoy at least a better (if not optimal) experience than I did in that race.
I think that like my plantar fascia, the knee issues that I am encountering due to my iliotibial band is something that I will be able to manage. Taper starts next week; though since I gutted the heaviest part of my training schedule I don't feel like I am tapering down from much. And after the race I have allotted myself three weeks of recovery before training for Twin Cities begins in earnest. So really, aside from a couple remaining mid distance runs and the race itself, I have a fairly easy six week window that I am entering.
The time now is to enjoy the anticipation of the race experience and to forget about any pangs of guilt over skipped mileage. My feet and my knee are more than enough to worry about without having to try to sooth my conscience as well.
I think that like my plantar fascia, the knee issues that I am encountering due to my iliotibial band is something that I will be able to manage. Taper starts next week; though since I gutted the heaviest part of my training schedule I don't feel like I am tapering down from much. And after the race I have allotted myself three weeks of recovery before training for Twin Cities begins in earnest. So really, aside from a couple remaining mid distance runs and the race itself, I have a fairly easy six week window that I am entering.
The time now is to enjoy the anticipation of the race experience and to forget about any pangs of guilt over skipped mileage. My feet and my knee are more than enough to worry about without having to try to sooth my conscience as well.
Monday 05/26/2014 |
| Scheduled: 8 Mile Recovery Run I rescheduled my skipped 20 mile long run from Saturday to today. I got through the first five miles with no issues, though by then my hat was soaked and the sweat was coming off the bill in steady drips. I practiced my on the go nutrition with gels (1 per hour) and overall felt pretty good. Around mile seven that pesky knee twinge started up again; I tried varying my stride and doing knee rises but it did not go away. The sensation was more one of discomfort than pain, though I could easily imagine the later stages of the run, when everything starts locking up under the best of circumstances, that the knee might squeal to a halt like a rusty gate hinge, and leave me broken down on the side of the road. The ten mile mark is at an intersection two miles from my house, so I knew that I would have the option to either turn right and continue with my run for the full distance, or turn left and cut the run off at twelve miles. By ten miles there really wasn't any change either way, and in the end I decided to let discretion be the better part of valor and opted for the safety valve. The good news is that the rest of my body (feet, ankles, etc.) handled the distance quite well. The knee itself was only a discomfort, never a pain (though it did tighten up after the run when I had rested for a while). |
Tuesday 05/27/2014 |
| Scheduled: 7 Miles GA, 7x400m @ 5k Time constraints again forced me to cut my Tuesday workout way back; furthermore I decided to do another simple run on the treadmill at a very easy pace to see how the knee responded. I could feel the twinge of discomfort the entire time though it never really became painful. So for the moment things seem manageable as long as I do not over-do it. |
Wednesday 05/28/2014 |
| Scheduled: 10 Miles MLR Continued discomfort on the outside of my right knee. Turned off my alarm in the morning and gave it a test drive to the bathroom and back. I laid back in bed and did some additional reading and research on Iliotibial band syndrome, followed by some of the stretching exercises that I learned. |
Thursday 05/29/2014 |
| Scheduled: 5 Miles Spd, 6 x 100M striders Skipped my miles again today, rested and stretched. I'm really getting sick of writing that in my reports. |
Friday 05/30/2014 |
| Scheduled: REST I stuck to my guns today and took my rest. Not only of my body, but also ensuring that I got proper sleep. |
Saturday 05/31/2014 |
| Scheduled: 18 Mile Long Run Thunderstorms and torrential downpours kept me indoors today so I ran a reduced workout on the treadmill. I ran two 5 mile sets of intervals, the first run at recovery pace with 400m intervals run at HMP and the second run at HMP with 400m intervals run at 5k pace. My right knee twinged during the speed intervals the first couple of miles, and then things got better. But the twinge came back, along with general sloppiness of form, when I started succumbing to fatigue in the back half of the second set. What I learned from this workout is that 1) the rest and massage seems to have made the overall running experience better, 2) No matter how you look at it, the back half of Grandma's is going to be a wild ride, and 3) If today's HMP was my GMP, I would need to reconsider my goals. As it is I think that my GMP is still do-able. |
Sunday 06/01/2014 |
| Scheduled: REST I was tempted to get out there and make up some of my missed weekly mileage today on my planned rest day. The rain helped convince me to go back to sleep; the treadmill never even crossed my mind. |
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