Week Two Boston Training: Swelling? Revisions? OMG, It's only week 2!

6/13/2021

Week Two is done.

Three workouts. Speed work, Hills, Long Run. Nothing monumental. Just more work than I have been used to doing. My body is reacting to the load. I expected to feel beat up as I return to training..

Monday's runs are now with Kim. She is slowly rebuilding her volume so we get to do Walk/Run workouts.

She had a 6M planned. We did 6M but I messed up my watch so only caught 5.5 of it. Regardless it was a nice warm up to the week.

I need to start making sure I get my flex work done on Mondays. My body needs it.

Tuesday' Speed with Dave.
We repeated last week's workout (.2M Hard/.8M easy) but the weather was 25 degrees hotter and humid. We didn't meet the goal of running faster than last week but we did "good enough" work. I want to see our bursts in the low 6's, and eventually sub-6 if possible. We shall see.

We also a new route which was not a keeper. Too many intersections and uneven sidewalks slowed us down. We will return to last week's route next week.

After the speed work, I did only about 20 minutes of strength work.

Wednesday, I woke up feeling some ache on the bottom of my left foot by the heel. It felt bruised. Not like PF but more like I steeped on something hard? It wasn't horrible but it did make me not want to stand on my left foot for too long. Thank goodness Wednesday are rest days from running. Dogs got walked and then I went to work.

Last weekend, I noticed the hill repeats were still in my legs by LR day, a bit too much than I wanted to feel them. It was 85 degrees last Saturday, so the sudden heat wave slowed me down anyway.

Regardless, I made a decision to move hard hill repeats (the 16% grade climb) to the Thursday before the easy LR, not the Thursday before the hard LR (which we will do every other week to accommodate our schedules). On alternate Thursdays we will do a longer very hilly run but the grade will be less than 16% for most of the climbs. This will be easy to recover from by LR day.

This was a repeat of the 16% grade .1M incline. I was happy to see my pace on the climb was about 1 minute faster (from a blazing 12:20 pace down to 11:20 pace). Hey, I take improvement any way I can get it.

On Thursday, I didn't have to leave for work until 1pm so Sid encouraged me to join him for an extra 3M run. It felt nice to take it easy after I did some strength training after the hills.

Thursday night, just as I was thinking about how good my foot felt and how the bottom of my foot no longer hurt, I glanced down and see this... a swollen bursa? Whoa!

It didn't hurt which is why I was surprised to see swelling.

The next morning, it was completely resolved so I ran with Kim.

Fridays are Kim's easier day. Still using Walk/Run. .
This run was 5M. Nothing was swollen so off we go. Easy pace just to be safe.

Saturday. Dog Transport Day!
I skipped my easy run day for two reasons.

(1) Sid and I volunteered at NorthStar Pet Rescue to help handle some rescue dogs who just got off the transport truck.

(2) My heel bursa was angry (swollen but not sore) so I decided to rest.

I didn't run my LR as fast or continuous as I had planned.

But I like what I did with this workout. I am going to keep it in the plan and revise out the work that I don't feel like I am ready to tolerate (non-stop Long Runs with Fast Finishes). Those harder runs will come back into the plan. Just not right away. I want to see how long it takes my heel to feel better.

For now, I like the Run/Walk LR for now. It isn't actually easy. I do the second half faster than the first. I try to get down under 8's for now (I haven't run fast in a while, so this is good enough for now).

I just want do just enough work to help me grow while not pushing myself past the breaking point. Although this is just week 2, I felt like was riding a little too close to that line.

The fastest way for me to get back into LR shape has always been to do this type of interval work for LRs. I get to spend more time moving at 8 minute pace or faster than I would if I just ran non-stop mileage. In time, the LRs will become non-stop. But for now, I will keep doing the interval work for LRs too until I feel less achy and beat up.

Stats:

47M total with 42M of running (maybe 42.5?).

I did two strength sessions only because I wanted to rest my heel. I also failed to do any flex for no good reason.

After Blood Donation on 5/24, my RHR is now back to 49. This is good.

My Body Composition really hasn't changed much but that was to be expected. I ran less this week than last week. I never really see a change until I start averaging 8M per day or more.

I am not interested in eating less just to drop weight faster. That is not the aim. I am seeing improvement in my running, which is the point of what I am doing. I don't want to be skinny, I want to be strong and I want to be able to move faster.

Strength and speed is the goal, body composition changes will come second. In time, as my mileage grows, I will burn off energy and get leaner. But for now, I need to fuel the work and fuel the recovery (which clearly is a bit precarious this week).

Predictions:

STRYD Predicts my Boston may be a bit faster that last week.
Garmin didn't change, except to tell me that I am "Unproductive" lol

That is all I got for this week!
Let's see what happens in a week from now.