Okay, that’s enough recovery

Posted on June 28, 2009 by threlkeld

I’m going to consider this week as my last week of post-marathon (as it were) recovery. Which means basebuilding begins anew tomorrow.

I know I’m recovered because I have been determined to run a race. Not because I expect to PR in anything (especially in the summer heat and humidity of NY), but mostly because I’ve missed running fast in a crowd. I tried to race in a brand new 10K up in Rockefeller State Park yesterday, but had to skip it after getting horribly lost. So I tried again today, with greater success, and ran the Achilles Track Club 5 miler in Central Park.

I’m not even going to bother putting together a race report, because this wasn’t really a “race” race. I just wanted an atmosphere in which I could run fast for more than a mile or two. I went in with no expectations and a liberating “I don’t give a shit about this race” attitude.

As a result, nothing bothered me. The lady at registration gets annoyed because I only have $25 (that’s what the NYRR web site said it cost) and they suddenly wanted $35? I don’t give a shit. I get stuck behind a bunch of 8:00 pace people for the first half mile? I don’t give a shit. Four women pass me in the last two miles? I don’t give a shit.

Yes, it was fun to race and not really care much about it. Although I did find one thing to motivate me: a woman with 12% body fat passed me in the first mile and said, “Nice job” and instead of appreciating her innocently offered good tidings, my inward competitive bitch muttered, “Lady, you’re dead meat.”

We spent the next 3.5 miles passing each other. She’d pass me on the uphills, I’d pass her on the downhills. At mile 4.5, a downhill, I passed her for the last time and kept up the effort all the way through the uphill finish. I did not hear “Nice job” again.

Final time was 37:17, good for 45th Female overall and 4th in my AG. I realized somewhere after mile 3 that I could have run harder. I guess it’s been over half a year since my last short race (a 10K), so I’ve forgotten how to run them. I knew I hadn’t raced all out because I still had plenty of energy afterward. So I came home and then went out and ran another 8 miles. Now I’m tired.

All in all, this was a good transitional week between the relative slothdom of the weeks immediately after the Newport race and next week, in which I hope to keep running some faster miles and get the mileage up around 70. I may even try to race again next week. I covered 58 miles this week, which is close to the 60 I wanted to hit.

I’ve not yet built the new spreadsheet for this season, so here’s the low-tech, unflashy breakdown:

  • Monday: 5 miles, recovery
  • Tuesday: 9.6 miles general aerobic with last 15 mins at harder effort (~91-93% MHR)
  • Wednesday: 7.1 miles, recovery
  • Thursday: 8.2 miles, recovery
  • Friday: 4.9 miles, recovery
  • Saturday: 10.1 miles, recovery
  • Sunday: 5 mile race, 7.8 miles general aerobic

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to get the results from last week’s bloodwork. I’ve held off on posting a post-Newport post-mortem until those come in. I have lots of theories about what could have been done better in the training (opinions that are shared by Coach Kevin), but if the bloodwork comes back with neon numbers pointing to an obvious problem at the cellular level then I’m apt to revise some (but not all) of those opinions. I still think there’s room for improvement in the next cycle, but the extent to which (and how) I think the training should be tweaked will rest in no small part on what the lab numbers say tomorrow.

Filed under: central park, racing, recovery | Tagged: , , , | 9 Comments »