Step by step, mile by mile

AM - hilly 8 mile w/u, 4xquarter mile hills w/ equal recovery, c/d for 12.

was gonna do more, but i work later today and didn't get much sleep last night so didn't do too much. spent most of the workout thinking of a cool name for the hill; i settled on "stairway to heaven". good start to the decade. averaged 84 but i think they’re a little longer than my watch says since jogging back down i hit .25 miles about 30m before the start. doesn’t really matter since effort and good form is what this workout is for. that hill is killer

PM - 8 after work.

AM - 4. was planning on shear-willing my way through some k repeats in the rain but i underestimated how hard it has to be raining for half the state to be on flood watch. plus my shift got upped to a double so i was pressed for time. might do a mile pickup on the treadmill after work if wearing my headband makes treadmill running any less insufferable; i'll get in a good lift either way though so it won't be a complete waste of a day for training. hope this stupid rain goes away

AM - 3 mile shakeout. got called in yesterday and was dead by the end of the shift so no running. if i get in a solid long run later today i won't get hung up on it.

PM - 12. had an off-and-on side stitch from the start, as soon as i hit around 11.6 it hit hard, the severity level where you can’t even keep your torso straight. if the wind hadn’t been 15 mph i think it would have been 6-minute pace. so ended it there, but got in a good full-body lifting session after. sauna too.

10 post-work with plyos after. legs were a bit sore from weights but i did way more than last time and i'm less sore than last time. idk the exact pace conversion after a 9-hour shift but i'd say it'd have been 7-flat if i hadn't worked.

AM - 6 mile w/u, 3 mile tempo in 17:06, mile c/d.

being my first tempo run since 2017, i guess this met expectations.  i wanted to do 5 but i learned the hard way you can't have rice and beans the night before a tempo, unfortunately. not a bad start but i have work to do, happy i finally had the stones to do a tempo run considering how much i hate them though. lots of room to grow.

PM - 5, gym after. felt REALLY good on the 5, good enough that i might be able to get past my disdain for tempo runs to feel like that again.

AM - 5 mile shakeout

AM2 - 8 mile w/u, 8x100m w/ 100m walking rec, mile cd. timed #2 and #7, 13.99 and 13.02.

felt so much easier and smoother than the 200's last week. felt like i was able to tweak my form a little bit on every one until i was cruising those last couple. hopefully i'm not too tired next tuesday from the tempo run because that 3x300 could be really fun if i'm feeling good. my PR for that workout is something like 40.2, 40.3, 40.2 which i don't think i'll beat, but still. ran the easiest 6:30 of my life that first mile of the warmup, felt like pure jogging.

PM - 5 easy + gym. kept the running extra easy to keep the legs feeling good for the next 3 days

AM - 5 easy. right ankle felt a tiny bit off getting out of bed so i took it extra slow, ready to pull the plug if i felt it on the run. i didn’t, legs actually felt pretty good by the end, i guess it was probably just some DOMS from the sprints yesterday.

AM2 - 7 mile w/u, 5 x quarter mile hill w/ equal jog rest, 81 avg, c/d for 12

was going to do 2 sets of 4 hill repeats, but i took a longer recovery between sets and my legs being a bit heavy my foot caught on a rock and i faceplanted hard. well, i almost did. i displayed the most impressive feat of reflexes in my life and managed to turn my body and tuck my arms and hit the ground rolling in that half-second between trip and impact. i was wearing a thick shirt and gloves so minimal damage sustained, did hit my right ankle on a rock though. nothing major, just gonna be sore for a day or so. decided to do one more after that, times were 83, 82, 81, 80, 79. changing the name of this hill from "stairway to heaven" to "penance". it's much more accurate. actually felt great on these aside from the whole falling thing. to paraphrase rocky, it isn't about how many times you eat shit but how many times you clean your mouth out

PM - 5 easy. skipped gym because my stomach was hurting. felt better by the end of the run but i'd rather get an extra hour of sleep tonight. didn't feel the fall from this morning, but i'll have to get a night of sleep before i really know if all the effects have passed.

SOTD: never in your sun - stevie wonder. SUCH a great song

AM - 5 mile shakeout

AM2 - 5 mile w/u, 4x1200m aerobic w/ 400m rec in 4:17, 4:05, 4:04, 3:58

was surprised the first one was that slow, but told myself to not sweat it and just move on to the second one. effort wasn’t too hard(max heart rate 139 according to the watch), but i thought they’d be faster. putting aside my ego and using perspective with running 4 workouts the past 4 days, i’m lucky to still be standing, let alone feeling pretty normal. plus, even if i feel good there’s no way i’m running this fourth straight workout at 100%, so there’s nothing to do but recover, get in my PM 5 and a long run tomorrow and recover with an easy weekend and i’ll be back next monday in better shape than i did this one. so with that in mind, it was a good one.

PM - 5 after work. right ankle was feeling all those track turns for this morning by the end.

AM - 5 easy. 

right ankle wasn’t giving me trouble but i knew i’d be playing a dangerous game if i went too far. i thought about it, and i think i’d be better off moving my long run to saturday. yes it would be after an 8 hour shift, but i think it’d be easier on the body than doing it after all the weekday workouts. i usually think up my own training, but i saw that bekele did something like this in his prime(the same 4 days of tempo, sprints, hills, intervals), while i did modify it to make it a bit easier considering this is my first real training block since high school, i realize it’s still a tall order. still, i think i’ve proven myself to have a ridiculously durable body, and the tuesday and wednesday workouts are more of fine-mechanics-tuning than workouts. but anyway, bekele did the same monday-thursday workout spread, with a long run on saturday with a day of recovery before and after. i’m not gonna try and make my workload more than the greatest runner of all time by doing that long run a day early. i’ll do another 5 on the treadmill after work, and skip the long run this saturday since it’s supposed to storm something terrible tomorrow.

PM - 5 after work. this shift was pure hell; you'd think dying was going out of style but felt SUPER good, pace wasn't crazy or anything, but even if i hadn't worked i still felt good enough that it's worth mentioning. finished right before the storm hit! score!

real conversation between me and a patient:

pt: what’s your name 

me: gene

pt: what was it before

me: before what

pt: wait were you born a guy

PM - 3. stomach wasn't feeling well so just a shakeout. ran in pajama bottoms over my boa 1" shorts from high school bc i was doing laundry. i can't believe i used to wear those lil skimpy things lol

overall great week of training! mileage could have been higher, but still.

AM - off.

caught a stomach virus. would have been okay to run yesterday if i hadn't worked, that def slowed recovery. i'm probably good now but i'll just do my two runs before and after work to play it safe. not that there's good timing for stuff like this but with storms the next couple days i wouldn't be running workouts anyway. should still have good enough weather to get in my hills and intervals, maybe a long run too.

ended up feeling better and ran 4.25 at 11. was gonna do 5 but got hit with some wicked stomach cramps right after 4. threw in some light surges(about 6-flat pace) in the middle to loosen up

PM - 1.75 after work. stomach still felt bad.

AM - 1. stomach still felt bad

PM - 5. stomach felt good! ran on the turf field, threw in lots of 60 yard strides that last mile and a half. hopefully this break from running was short enough that i won’t have to deal with my usual hiccup stemming from jumping back in too fast

AM - 5. managed to start before 4AM and felt extremely good with that in mind. did some strides the last 1.5 again to see if it does anything for my next run

AM2 - 15 miles @ 7:07 pace. ran out of clif bars yesterday so all i had eaten between runs was a dark cherry & cranberry juice smoothie(plus my usual black coffee) so those last couple of miles sucked, even if they were my fastest. finishing 20 miles before 9:20AM... this is what i live for

PM - 5 before work. really had to use it

PM2 - 10 after work. biggest mileage day ever with a shift worked; i'd say it's good enough to be a 40-mile day, but i'll keep it at 35. also fastest average pace on a quadruple i believe

AM - 5 miles. legs felt good all things considered, had to use it as bad as i ever have that last 2k

AM2 - 20 miles. the difference in mental difficulty between a 15 and 20 miler is palpable, i swear every mile feels twice as long. it was muddy, windy, and my hair was constantly in my eyes and/or mouth so it was pretty insufferable. very happy i got it done, now i'm gonna eat and lie down for about 4 hours

PM - 5. was going to get a pair of secondary trainers at Ross, but all they had were some flyknit fly's(essentially 4% knockoffs). i'm personally on the side of the fence that the whole "carbon plate acting as a springboard" aspect is cheating and never planned on getting a pair, but for $44.99 i thought about it and realized my real problem is them being used for ratified world records(yes Kipchoge is 100% the fastest marathoner ever, and i still think Bekele would have ran faster than the old world record without them too, i just think Nike cheated the system a little bit to get him under 2 hours(Nike if you're reading this i'm sorry give me my contract already)). wearing them around my apartment after the run, i understand the hype. they really force you on your toes when you move forward. i'll have fun doing workouts in them.

PM2 - 15 easy. learned the hard way it’s not a good idea to drink like 4 cups of coffee before this run lol

AM - 5. before i even got out of bed i could tell my legs were thrashed, so decided to give themselves a few hours to recover a bit. it's understandable; i did just set a two-day mileage PR by 5 miles with 80(just in case anyone thought the 200-mile week was a fluke :) ). i don't think it's anything serious considering i felt fine on the run, but i feel it a bit after. i'll just do 5 after work and two 10-milers after work this weekend and should be back monday good. 

PM - 1 after work

so i honestly can't remember if i felt this before the morning run or not, and i didn't during, but after i felt a very slight issue in my left knee. i've never had a problem from running that felt anything like it before, but i can describe it to a T. it feels like one little spot in my knee is bruised, like someone punched me in the kneecap and it's the day after. it isn't in the muscle or tendon or anything, it isn't painful and doesn't affect my running form, and stretching doesn't aggravate or relieve it. i'd probably not be talking about it if i properly recovered today instead of working the most bs shift yet(i got the employee of the month laurel(let's pretend laurel is a noun(that doesn't mean shrub))) anyway despite that it went away completely over the course of the shift anyways, but i felt it the first step of the run and it didn't get any better(or any worse) a mile in so i stopped there. barely felt it getting groceries after, i rolled my legs out and jogged in place and walked around and didn't feel it at all. hopefully it's just some very weird minor thing, i'll barely run tomorrow and hopefully it'll be gone by sunday. gonna ice it and take advil like tijuana donkeys take viagra the next day or two and i'm gonna be money again

oh and favorite part of the shift:

patient: *points behind me* hey look at that fine young lady

me: *turns around, sees him pointing at my reflection in the mirror*

PM - 2 after work

didn't feel my knee at all during work, didn't feel it until about a half-mile in, didn't get much worse by the end. def felt better than after work yesterday, but my 6th sense is telling me it's an issue that would be better off letting rest than training through. simply put, i got greedy after the time off from the stomach virus and went full throttle too fast. it's really annoying, but i guess the silver lining is knowing i can do that much still. i'd say a full day of recovery would get rid of it, but 2 shifts of 13 hours on my feet with an 11-hour break in between isn't full recovery, so i'll be back either monday night or tuesday morning, and let next week be a sort of brick week to get back to the fitness of a couple days ago the right way.

AM - 5. no knee pain! yes!!!!! with it being my first run in under 30 degrees in years, the stiffness from the past few days off was definitely accentuated, but i think some good stretching between this run and the next will probably take care of it

PM - 10. felt good, probably the most effortless 10 i've ever ran. legs were hurting a little the last 10 minutes or so, but that's just from not running the last couple of days. even though the AM run went well i knew this was the real test if the knee was okay, i'm so happy to say it is.

so about 30 minutes after my PM 10 the left knee started to get sorer(?) and sorer. nothing worse than last friday night, but about on par. its mild enough that i could run on it, but i think it’ll get worse. i barely feel it after waking up which is good. i didn’t feel it at all after my AM 5, so my two takeaways are 1.) it needs a few more days to fully recover(hopefully just that since 2 days off nearly did the trick) and 2.) i’ll probably need to ramp training back up a bit slower. obviously i’m frustrated, this isn’t the most inopportune time but with about 12 weeks until the 5k i was planning on peaking for, it’s not great. i’ll take today completely off, cross train and do some upper body lifting thursday and friday and try again on saturday or sunday. 

stretched my IT band during my lunch break and the knee felt really good after, and the "can't run" depression was getting me down enough that i couldn't stand to wait any longer and did 5 after work. knee feels fine 30 minutes later. working a 12-hour shift before adds some solidarity to it too. still have a couple of benchmarks to clear before i can stop being paranoid about it; waking up tomorrow and feeling fine will be the first

so cleared the first test by the knee feeling good when i woke up. was gonna do an extra 5 this morning but i was so fired up from actually running again that it took me like 3 hours to fall asleep and i slept in too late to have time before work. it’s probably for the best for today.

PM - 5 after work + gym for weights. ran with an extremely heavy heart

AM - 5. took out my insoles; i get a new pair with every pair of pegasus’ i purchase(now say it 5 times fast tough guy) because i think the left one shifted and thought it could have something to do with the IT band. not sure if it did or my legs just feel better as they get used to running again but felt good. pretty convinced at this point that i should have just stretched it out instead of took time off, but what’s done is done

PM - 5. a tiny bit faster with the pace. feels so good to be training again

AM - 5 on the turf at 4AM. good ol’ faithful 

noon - 2. knee was a bit sore after the morning run; i purposely ran clockwise so my left knee took the most of the weight from 100+ turns, just to put a little extra pressure on it. it was a little sore after so i tried some new stretches and found one one that hit the problem right on the money; it made the knee ache a bit but i know it was in a good way because i was finally able to bend my leg the way i said last week without any issue. i knew it'd probably be sore if i didn't give it a few more hours but i wanted to test my theory that this is a problem that i can just stretch out; it lets me know how to respect it going forward. i was right about it being a little sore, more than the past 3 days but much less than before that. did the stretch, then did the things that normally aggravate it(kicking the leg back, heel-to-posterior stretch) and no issue. jogged around for a little bit more, still no issue. 30 minutes since then, haven't done my standard post-run stretching or rolling yet... no issue. so either way this is a win, it's an extra win if i decide to do a night run, but if not i'm still happy with it.

AM - gym for core, hips and glutes + a mile on the treadmill. no knee issue which surprised me but with the past 10 days of it i'm not singing kumbaya or anything. should be good to run after work though, might try going farther than 5

PM - 6 after work. wanted to do 9 after a couple miles of no issue but thought a smaller dub would be smarter than a riskier one. put off stretching for a bit by getting groceries first but i also bought a heating pad so i’d say it evens out for today, and was the better move for the near future. knee still feels fine but until i can triple again i’m not saying i’m out of the woods

SOTD: moanin' - charles mingus. eye-opening and mind-expanding jazz music

AM - 5 easy. felt good. splits were 7:09, 7:15, 7:22, 7:15, 7:09

PM - 10 after work. was completely exhausted by the end of the shift and thought i'd tap out at 2 but i willed myself to 5 and after that i just took it mile by mile until i hit 10. knee seems fine, guess we'll see if it has another sucker-punch up it's patella for me

AM - 2, then hips and glutes. was gonna do 5, knee wasn't sore but thought it might be around mile 3 so i drove to the gym, planning on doing weights for the IT band area to loosen up then another 3 on the treadmill. glutes made it a lot worse, but it feels a bit better a few minutes later. 

PM - 4. knee felt fine. wanted to do 10 but was exhausted from work and figured if i can do 10 after work tomorrow i'll have done a 60 mile week and likely proved to myself i can increase the workload, but i'll need to be super anal about recovery the next couple of weeks. or it'll sucker-punch me again because as AZ said on illmatic...