Felt a lot better today, even though work was considerably more demanding. So I turned a scheduled 4-mile GA into a 7-mile tempo run. The right groin twinge of last night reappeared during the warmup run, but only for a few seconds, and never returned. If it had acted up, I would have shut down the tempo run just like last night. Instead, I did a little progression on the tempo (as I took the initial pace down just a tad because of last night's twinges) -- 0.8 miles at 8:00 pace, 0.8 at 7:53 pace, 0.4 at 7:47 pace, 1.0 at 7:41 pace, then a half-mile jog, then 1.0 at 7:30 pace.
So now I'm caught up on my training schedule for the week, with the exception that I've done 4.8 miles of LT instead of 6.0. I guess I could throw 1.2 miles of LT into tomorrow night's MLR. Or not. We'll see how I feel. Then I probably need to do a quick 5 Friday night so that my two-week total will come out right, since I'm doing Saturday's LR on Sunday (that 5 will replace the Sunday recovery run). Five on Friday would bring this week's total to 38, which leads me to the topic of next week.
I've still gotta figure out how to adjust next week to allow me to have some kind of decent run on the 27th at Benton (I mailed in my registration today). I gotta have some kind of taper. The whole purpose of Benton is to prove to myself that my training enables me to hold goal pace for a prolonged period, and thus build my confidence, and I can't do that with dead legs.
Currently the schedule calls for 9 with strides on Monday, 6 on Tuesday, 13 on Wednesday, 5 on Thursday with strides, then 16 with 12 at MP on Saturday. Maybe 5 on Monday (recovery from Sunday), 8 on Tuesday, 6 on Wednesday with strides, then the 20K with some warmup and cooldown. With 20 on Sunday, that's still 53-55 miles in the week, depending on how much warmup-cooldown I do. Hard to imagine a 55-mile week including some taper, but that what I have. Besides, my biggest running week to date before I got into this plan was a taper week -- four light jogs and a marathon, totaling roughly 38.5 miles.
Then I need to adjust the following week to allow some recovery time from Benton. Current schedule: 5-9(VO2)-3-11-7-off-13. Maybe 5-5-9(VO2)-7-11-off-13 would be adequate. Or maybe 5-5-5-9-11-off-13. Or just play it by ear and how my legs feel. | 