I just wrapped up my biggest training volume week since the summer and I feel fresh, rested and motivated. The mileage or intensity wasn’t necessarily anything to write home about, but after a few months of lower mileage weeks (in the 30-50km range), it feels like an achievement to be back up to ~70km a week with a few little cross-country ski forays in the mix as well.
After two weeks in a row of three workouts per week, I ended up settling for just two this week, though that wasn’t the initial plan. Maybe it was the effect of the roll over into the New Year, but I started the week off trying to accomplish too much with too little time (as I often do). I initially had ambitions of fitting in three marathon workouts, catching up with friends visiting town, making it out to the the Dirtbags workout on Thursday and trying to fit in my long run on Saturday before the snow fell and sabotaged my efforts of hitting the paces I wanted. The days that I had social plans, the weather forecast and the fact that it’s not a great idea to run hard workouts or long runs back-to-back became a math equation that I simply could not solve and a barrel of monkeys I couldn’t untangle. By Wednesday evening, I was so indecisive on whether I wanted to go out for a cross country ski, the 10 x 1min hard interval session I had planned, an easy run or just do nothing that I sat in analysis paralysis for literally 30 minutes on the bench in my entryway trying to tune into what I really needed in that moment. I realized I needed a reset, I was way overthinking things and I just needed to adapt my week to all the fun opportunities and social time I was craving and try not to cram it in around an unnecessarily rigid training schedule.
Sure, this isn’t always the answer; often in training (and life) it’s really important to stick to what you had planned and have an unwavering sense of commitment. However, if you never invite flexibility into your training (and life) it’s a pretty surefire way to end up feeling burnt out, resentful or mentally fried when it comes to training (and again, probably life too). I sure don’t want to arrive at the start line of the Boston Marathon feeling any of those things. The marathon is still 14 weeks away which is a relatively long time. We know that with training, while specificity is key, specificity also becomes a much bigger factor the closer you get to your goal race and is less of a factor the further out from a race you are. I think it’s a huge investment to allow yourself a little fun, freedom and flexibility earlier in the training block so that when you get into the longer, harder workouts closer to the race, you remain engaged and excited about training, right when you need to be the most on top of your game. I think this becomes all the more important when you are training for an ultra or race for a longer period (like 6+ months) – it’s easy to go hard off the start and feel like you want to be giving it your all from day one. My advice is to be patient and make sure you save some grit for when the training gets real hard!
And so I said fuck it, I abandoned my 10 x 1min hard intervals and went to the Dirtbags workout instead (it had 5 x 3min hard which I figured was good enough, plus there was beer after). I went on two cross country ski dates, both with friends I really wanted too see and have way tighter schedules than I do so I was committed to making time for them. Andrei and I ran at 8am on a SATURDAY, which is a thing I never do, but it suited Andy & Saira’s schedule this weekend and got us out before the snow. We tackled a 4 x 5km long run workout as a team and it was AWESOME – we were home with a massive breakfast and mimosas on the couch by 11am (I could get used to this running early on a weekend thing). We got out for a trail run with Dave and I didn’t care how far we ran, for how long, or whether it was on road or not. Perhaps Highline is not what you might think of as a marathon training route but it definitely had me finish the weekend on a high. Excited to get back to a few more structured workouts next week.
Last Week’s Training:
Monday – 7.5km/45minutes easy trail (surviving the NYE hangover)
Tuesday – 5km xc ski to the warming hut for wine and cheese
Wednesday – AM: 7km easy (Dawn Patrol), PM: 6km easy
Thursday – Dirtbags workout (5 x 3min flat, 5 x 30s hills, 5 x 15s sprints)
Friday – 75 minute/11km xc ski
Saturday – 27km Long Run (4 x 5km @90% Marathon Pace, 500m float) Thanks to Andy for this workout! I was dubious at first that it was too much too do too soon, but the 90% MP felt super manageable and I finished each 5km effort feeling like I could keep going. We definitely hammered the last one – oops!
Sunday – 10km trail/75mins. Tried to go easy, but Dave sets a mean pace
Total: 72km running/1275m vert in ~7 hrs
This one time I went running 