Merry Christmas!
I decided to keep the training updates going to help me stay on track even though I really need to get another Year of Writing essay completed and posted. I’ll work on that next.
I made it through 4 weeks. I can now say I’m consistent! This is the sixth week I’ve been on the training plan1. Not getting all my mileage in every week, but getting a good portion of it, especially the long runs. Well…except for last week.
What happened was… In my usual “all or nothing” way, I jumped straight into W3 on the training plan without a moderate mileage buildup, basically going “from 0 to 100.” I did back to back days of 4.3 and 6 mile runs that first week of training. 7 miles four days later and 9 miles a little over a week after that. Last week, I had 11 miles on the schedule—a little faster jump up than the plan called for, but I’m still catching up and need to get my mileage up if I’m going to manage the marathon in March.
I got started that morning on the first of about 2.29 repeats of the 4.8 mile out and back trail at Ft. Parker SP. I kept to a modest pace (>20:00 min/mi) with the goal being just to get the distance on my feet, no matter how long it took. Coaching myself, I firmly noted this run’s focus was for toughening up my mental fortitude more so than my body. I was going to embrace the discomfort and boredom and get the mileage done. (He-he-he. Best laid plans…)
After the first out-and-back, my right hip and low-back above my left hip were hurting. Turns out, the 9 miles I’d done the previous week had caused more irritation in my joints and muscles than I’d thought. I thought so little of it and felt almost no symptoms I, of course, didn’t bother doing any hip mobility or stretching after. Nor the days in between. (Such a dumbass!)
No more than 4.8 miles into the planned 11 miles, I paused at a picnic table near the Ft. Parker Lake Dam to do (finally!) some stretching and mobility work. Then I headed out for the second of 2+ repeats. The more I walked, the harder it was to resist the urge to favor my right hip.
“This is to toughen your mind,” I told myself. “Just relax and lean into it.”
When I found myself full on limping I called it at the 3/4 mile marker. The limp was tweaking my knee and I knew better than to try to push through it, particularly on just a training run. During a race, I might push through into injury, but injury on a simple training run means the race isn’t likely to happen.
By the time I got back to the parking lot, I had around 6.3 miles. Decent effort, but quite a bit short of what I needed to do.
The lesson is sticking (for now). I’m going through the hip mobility and stretching once every day or two. I’ve already noted an improvement and lessening of the pain.
My friend Kathy and I met this past Sunday at Cameron Park in Waco to “preview” the course of our upcoming event. I’ve mentioned before how challenging the trails are in Cameron Park. I had more discomfort than I wanted on what was mostly a leisurely paced hike. (“Leisurely,” because I had to pause and backtrack, trying to figure out the trails to follow to stay on the “course.” (It’s much easier on race day after the race director has marked the course. 😜). Overall, despite all the “rock climbing” and descents we had to do, I was happy with how my body tolerated the work.
As proof of “lesson learned,” I did the full hip mobility and stretching routines pre-hike. Followed by the full stretching routine post-hike. LOL Kathy and I met again yesterday for our S&C workout at Planet Fitness and I had us both go through the hip mobility routine in addition to our usual round or two of sun salutations form c. Kathy noted she’s already feeling an improvement in her flexibility.
Woohoo! That makes me happy. Means I’m doing my “job” right as coach and trainer.
For Monday’s mileage, I did a 10,000 step “indoor walk” workout—the equivalent of 5 miles. I chose it because of all the additional movement it has. Side steps, forward, backward, kicks, kickbacks, knee ups, grapevine, not to mention the arm movements thrown in to increase the cardio. I knew this would give my hips a could full range of motion workout, as opposed to the same repetitive forward motion of walking/hiking. My heart rate never got much about 100 bpm, but I definitely worked up a sweat!
Tomorrow is my long run for this week. I’m aiming for 12 miles at Cameron Park—4 repeats of the 5K course. (If I stick with the 25K for the event, I would be doing 5.) I’m fairly certain that’s overly ambitious, but I’m planning for 10-12. Anything beyond 9 miles I’ll be happy with.
Leaving you with some pics from the past 3 weeks training excursions.
- Remember, I started the marathon training on week 3 of the plan to make it match with my race date. That’s why the weeks don’t match up between how long I’ve been training and what week of the plan I’m following. ↩︎
