Last week I set the goal to run 75 miles, and ended up actually running 80 miles.
At the first part of the week I was feeling a lot of muscles stiffness around Tuesday, but by Thursday most of that began to disappear. Even though I was able to reach my goal, I have decided that at my current level of fitness, a distance of about 50 miles a week is probably more realistic.
The reason for setting this goal, was just to see if I still had it in me to do that much mileage. Accomplishing the goal has given me a lot of confidence, however, I am not convinced that putting in so much mileage is actually the best way to train. I have decided to list what I consider to be some of the advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages:
1. Pace is slower and easy, so there seems to be less impact and shock on the body. Maybe this helps in less injury.
2. During afternoon runs, my body was tired and forced itself to relax and run in the most economic way. Learning that relaxed and economic form of running may help even when running faster during shorter distances.
3. Putting in the long distance has given me running confidence and I feel like I can do anything, from short sprints to a marathon.
4. Lost over 1 kg during the week.
Disadvantages:
1. Runs are at a pace slower than race pace, so I don't know whether or not the body is being trained to go faster, or just becoming capable of going a slower pace. I was afraid of doing anything too fast, because I though it would prevent me from running as long as I wanted.
2. Running mornings and afternoons takes up a lot of time. I had to sacrifice spending time with my boyfriend and other friends. Had a couple of disagreements with my boyfriend about it.
3. The extra distance caused me to be sleepy and tired all the time, even though I was getting the same amount of sleep at night.
There are probably more advantages and disadvantages than these, but these are the ones that came to mind.
In my training, I will go back to maybe 50 miles a week. and gradually increase the mileage from there. I will do a couple of harder workouts during the week to keep my body accustomed to go at race pace. I will also add some faster shorter strides and the like to try and develop a faster turn over. By gradually increasing the distance at no more than 10% each week or every 2 weeks, I think I will be able to train my body to handle faster running even when I begin to do more mileage. I will also try to listen to my body, so as not to risk getting injured. And most important, I must find a way to be able to make sure I don't neglect my boyfriend, friends and family.
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