Hey everyone! A bit late on this update, unfortunately…but lets get going!
For week 8, I had some issues with the my left ankle. I have talked about it before and it came up as a bigger problem this week. Feeling pretty sick and then Halloween also played into lower mileage this week.
But I did get four runs in – 5, 5, 4, 6 – no long run, but I was being careful on my ankle. Frankly, I am surprised that I got four runs done, all things considered. Another bonus was that the last 3 runs were on consecutive days.
After that, I made some adjustments to what I was doing and started to get a very quick turn around on how my ankle was doing. In fact it started feeling better than it has in months!
For week 9 – things went a lot better. 5,8,3,15 – I got solid speed work in, got a decent mid length run in and drained the tank and got a solid 15 miler in. That run took everything I had but I got it done and it has really helped my confidence that I can still complete a marathon, or at least train up decently for one. With that run in and the time I have left, I get the feeling I might be able to get two 20 milers in instead of the one I figured I had to move down to on my program.
And my ankle still feels really good!
One thing I did do very differently this week was to move my long run from a scheduled Sunday to being on Saturday. For many years (like literally since I started really running in 2001), Sunday has been my long run day but with everything we have going on as a family, it is easy to get feeling guilty about taking time for a long run on this day when it is basically the only day of the week we can easily spend as a family day without some structured activity going on.
So, my wife and I talked about options and there are a few things I can move around to get the long run in on another day besides Sunday. On Thursdays the kids have swimming lessons, now that the kids are older, both my wife and I don’t have to take the kids to wrangle them in separate change rooms. So Thursday is an option – I can get in a couple hours of running there. Saturday is the other option – both kids have curling for a few hours Saturday mornings and my wife takes them for that activity, so I could have time there too – which is what I did this week.
I am also looking at potentially staying at 4 runs a week instead of 5 to try to prevent re-injuring of the ankle.
So here are where things stand:
1. Tuesday – short run – with speed work
2. Wednesday – medium run
3. Thursday – potentially long run – if not then rest
4. Friday – short run if don’t run on Thursday – rest if run Thursday
5. Saturday – medium or long run – if do long run on Thursday then this will be medium length
6. Sunday – could be short or medium runs or a rest day – will play this one by ear, if did a long run on Saturday this is probably a rest day, but if I didn’t this could be medium or short depending on how I feel. And if I am feeling burnt out then this becomes a rest day
7. Monday – rest day
The hope is that this way I can ensure I have options for getting the long run in without feeling guilty and also being able to build in safety valves in the plan in case I burn out or start to re-injure myself.
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