Fatigue Deep, Heart Rate High

Although, right now, there is another Tina Turner songs that springs to mind.

The forecast for the next 5 days are rain, rain, rain, chance ofr rain and rain. Christ!

So I've been back on the road for three days now, and if you include the 2 treadmill runs at the start of the week that makes 5 days of running after a break of only 4 days. I would have thought that's more than enough to get back to your previous level because apparently you do not lose any fitness over such a short amount of time. That's what they said.

Well, they obviously need to re-think what they know. I can see my own numbers as clear as can be. My VDOT values went from 58 last week to 51 this week and have only gone back to 53 as of Friday. I keep the effort as easy as ever but if you look at the HR you'd think I've been doing a couple of tempo runs, which I absolutely did not, neither by pace nor effort.

If I had not gotten sick I would have done my first marathon-specific workout on Wednesday. I still had vague hopes that I might be able to squeeze it in on Thursday, possibly even Friday, and get on with the rest of the program.  But I always knew that if I were advising another runner in the same situation I would have urged her to bin the workout and only start doing tough workouts once you have fully recovered. It's much harder to tell that to yourself, though. In the end I managed to get through to myself, Wednesday and Thursday were both easy 8 mile runs and that was that. From the way my legs have been feeling on such an easy load, a workout would have been a complete disaster.

When my hamstrings felt tired on Wednesday I could only think of Monday's yoga session as the most likely culprit but they still felt unhappy on Thursday and Friday, though surely that cannot come from overtraining after 21 miles last week and still a low mileage so far this week, can it? By the way, the yoga teacher told me that she can see progress already, though truth to be told I suspect she was merely trying to be encouraging because I sure can't see it. As far as I can tell my hamstrings are still as tight as ever (not that that causes me any actual trouble - apart from my yoga positions being less than stellar).

The weather isn't exactly cooperating, particularly on Friday morning when it was pretty wild with gale force wind, heavy rain and f***ing freezing, probably my least favoured conditions. The shower after such a run becomes a way of warming up rather than getting clean.

I'm still in hope that I can do a workout on Sunday (in the wind and rain?). Maybe it's a mistake but at some stage I need to get back to training.

3 Feb

8 miles, 1:02:58, 7:52 pace, HR 150

4 Feb

8 miles, 1:03:12, 7:54 pace, HR 149

5 Feb

10 miles, 1:19:42, 7:52 pace, HR 145

6 Feb

5 miles, 38:59, 7:46 pace, HR 146