19 Days to Go (ATTACK OF THE JELLY LEGS!)
Attack of the Jelly Legs! Here's what you get when you google it:
Jelly legs were the theme of the week. It was the peak week and my body definitely let me know it. Let's see how the week went.
Date - Day - Scheduled Workout (Intervals within desired pace, Strength +/- 5 sec, everything else +/- 10 sec)
9/7/16 - W - Medicine Ball Workout (MBW)
9/8/16 - R - 1.5 miles @ 9:10 min/mile + 11 miles @ 7:33 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:20 min/mile (8/11)
9/9/16 - F - 10 miles @ 9:11 min/mile (4/10)
9/10/16 - Sat - 10 miles @ 8:33 min/mile (7/10) + MBW
9/11/16 - Sun - 18 miles @ 8:13 min/mile (14/18)
9/12/16 - M - 8 miles @ 9:11 min/mile (5/8)
9/13/16 - T - 1.5 miles @ 9:29 min/mile + 4 x 1.5 mile @ 7:23 min/mile with 400m RI @ 9:34 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:46 min/mile (4/4)
Total mileage = 70.5 miles
Number of intervals within pace = 41/61 (67%)
Thursday was the first 11 mile tempo run I have ever done (including all prior training). I was excited to take the training one step further this cycle and because of the duration 11 miles would take me based on my pace I thought it still fit the desired physiological gains. T+D of 140 which is decent. So the oddity of the day, a man slowed his car up next to me as I was running. He said "hi, I like your running stride". And I was like ummm, ok thanks creep! He said "I work at the Johnson Health Tech facility in town. Where do you start your run?" I said I did a three mile loop and started over there (very intentionally vague). He was like "Do you run on treadmills often?" I told him no, I'm almost exclusively a road runner. He said "Well we make treadmills and I'm in charge of the treadmill testing department I'd love to have you work with us." I told him I appreciate the offer, but I'm not sure I'd be a good candidate because I 100% prefer to run on roads. He said thanks and that he'd heard of my type of runner (jokingly of course) and we went about our way. Such a weird experience. My wife was totally like I should have done it, get paid to run/train, why not? Ehhh, maybe I should have done it, but I'm not really a treadmill runner. Anyways, back to the run. So as I was getting closer to the end it was getting much tougher. I knew this would be the last day I would be willing to go "there" and decided to go for it on the last tempo mile. This was the first occurrence of the aforementioned "Jelly Legs". I knew at the time the only way I could overcome the Jelly Legs was to either go faster or slower, but staying at the same pace/effort was not an option. On this run, I decided to go for it and run faster. It was a solid tempo run with 73% of the intervals within pace.
Friday I became aware of a tightness in my right calf and soreness on the top of it. I've had this before and typically it happens because I pushed too hard on a training run. So apparently, I pushed too hard on Thursday. Thankfully, if I continue to take it easy, run up hills easy, and just be extra cautious with it it should clear in a few days. So overall the run went fine. Several times I considered ending early, but decided to stick with it. A few "twitches" during the run where the right leg was pulled abnormally. It's an odd sensation.
Saturday was an early morning run. I wasn't sure whether I would do it at all. I was going to make that decision based on how I felt when I got up. So up at 3:45, pre-run breakfast, and then out the door at 5:45. The run was fine. The calf was still tight and the soreness still present, but it was better than Friday. I again questioned whether I should complete the whole run or cut it short but the calf felt better the longer I was running on it.
Sunday was the last long run. Up at 4:00, pre-run breakfast, and then out the door by 6:00am. I was super stoked for this run. I decided to start this run earlier then I needed to (no real time commitments) but because the T+D was around 100 at 6:00am I wanted to simulate early October marathon weather. I was planning on being super cautious. My calf was still not 100%, so it wasn't worth the risk of any significant setbacks. Everything went as well as expected. When not running up/down hills I was in my almost normal long run stride with a few "twitches" here and there but nothing major. However, taking it slow on the hills (which reduced more twitches) also slowed me down on overall pace. I'm not terribly concerned with that. I mean the last long run for the May 2016 Wisconsin Marathon didn't even occur because I got super sick right before that weekend. However, then came mile 15. I could tell that my legs were getting fatigued as my form started to fall apart. It wasn't breathing and it wasn't pain, it was just a weird sensation I get where I can best describe it as "I forget how to run". It was "Attack of the Jelly Legs - The SEQUEL". I've never really had this occur twice in one week, but I think it's likely being caused my over fatigued single set of muscles. So since, I wasn't prepared to go "there" again I decided to back off on the pace a bit. So the last two intervals were a tad slower, but better that than a long term problem that carries over into race day. Overall, I'm pretty stoked with how the day finished out. Came home and felt strong and recovered well with some shopping with no ill effects of the "Jelly Legs".
Monday was a slap of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). So during Monday I was fine, but once I started running it became very apparent just how tired my body was from the workouts. The last time I had this feeling of overwhelming fatigue was Marathon Weekend after the half/morning of the marathon. Those first couple miles were a struggle, but since this was an EA day it was a "go as slow as you want and don't worry about it day". After a few miles, the sense of overwhelming fatigue finally broke and it felt better. Thankfully, no occurrences of right calf twitching or tightness so I think I've put that behind me. Once I got home I saw that the pace was a 9:20 and was a little disappointed. I was suppose to do 9:11. I was getting a little concerned that maybe I've pushed too hard these last few days and my body's starting to rebel. To confirm this, I decided to look at prior EA runs after the 18 mile long runs. They were 9:15 and 9:22 average pace. So it was a bit of a relief to see that this EA run was no different than roughly 28 days ago after my first very successful and easy 18 mile run. I was less concerned with the overall pace after that.
Tuesday was a question of whether I continued to go easy or do the strength run as planned. I decided to play it by ear. Start the run easy with the warm-up and then see how it goes. So, here's how it went (goal pace 7:23)
Interval 1- 7:39
Interval 2- 7:21
Interval 3- 7:24
Interval 4- 7:21
Yep, it went well. No calf pain. No hip pain. A little bit of stuffy nose (still haven't gotten rid of whatever that is, but it only occurs during running). Solid all around.
I've been training for so long for this. Almost the entire year has been devoted to this one race. Every mile. Every 100 degree day. Every -25 degree day. Every day running in snow, rain, wind, at 3am, at 10pm, with muscle soreness, with humidity, with a training plan way above anything I've done has all been for October 2nd. To put it one way I recently did on the running thread. I will have spent almost 2000 miles training for a race that is only 26.2 miles. That's roughly 99.987% time running as training and only 0.0131% of the time running this particular race. No pressure. This is just the victory lap of training!
Honestly, there's not much left.
Long Runs - 0
Tempo Runs - 2
Strength Runs - 1
This really is the home stretch and entrance into taper town.
