Weekly Rundown- The Hay is in the Barn!
Guess what? I’m officially in my taper!!! I had my last long run on Wednesday and now I just have to get through the next two weeks without doing anything stupid. I’m linking up as always with Kim and Deborah for the Weekly Rundown. Let’s just see how the week went! Monday I started off this chilly week with a 4 mile run. It got down to the upper 40s every morning- I don’t think I’ve ever had so many photos of me running in a long sleeve shirt before! Followed this run with plank and dead bugs. Tuesday I got myself to the gym for the 12/3/30 treadmill workout- 12% incline, 3 mph, for 30 minutes. Followed by upper body and abs! Wednesday LAST LONG RUN before my race! It was a planned 20 mile run, and just for something different I decided to go to the trail I used to run on when I was training for my 50K last year. I wonder why I haven’t been running there lately? This trail is SANDY. I trained on it last year because my race had a lot of sand- but my race this year has NO sand (yay!) I forgot how hard it is to run on the sand! The trail is really beautiful though. Everything was going well until mile 15, when I felt my left achilles. Oh yes, it’s all coming back to me- long runs on this trail used to bother that achilles. I tried to stick to parts of the trail with less sand, but by 18 miles that achilles was yelling at me, so I called it. SIGH. It was such a bummer, because the weather was beautiful and everything else felt great. I had to remind myself that in the big scheme of things, it won’t matter that I ran 18 instead of 20 miles on this day, and it wasn’t worth it to end up with an injury. Thursday My achilles, along with many other body parts, was stiff and sore when I woke up, but I did my mobility routine and decided to try a run. I walked a mile- so far, so good- and then started running. My achilles said “NOPE!” I cut this run short after a mile. I was pretty sure the achilles was not injured, but just very angry. And I don’t blame it! Whose stupid idea was it to do a long run on a sandy trail??? I went home and doubled up on my core. Don’t be too impressed by that- my core work has been pretty minimal these days, so it was probably good to do a little more. Friday I contemplated doing strength at home, but decided to go to the gym, and I’m so glad I did. I did squats, deadlifts, overhead press with dumbbells, abs and low back. I felt like this workout was so good for me. I had some lingering soreness when I started, especially in my quads while doing squats, but it got better and better with each set. I’ve had this happen before- I have lingering soreness from a long run, but “heavy” lifting (the term is definitely relative) helps it dissipate. Anyone else have this experience? Saturday 4 mile run, and my achilles felt perfectly fine. PHEW! I was 99% sure that it was just irritated and not actually injured, but that 1% doubt was stressing me out. Actually this was my best run of the whole week! The weather was perfect and I felt great. Go figure. Sunday On tap for today- off! Sleeping in, waffles, taking down the outdoor Christmas lights… wait, WHAT? Yes, they’re still up. I’m not sure if this makes it any better, but at least I haven’t been turning them on. Today is finally the day! So that was the week, with a little drama thrown in for good measure. But that’s to be expected- there will be drama from now until my race on the 17th (last year I was convinced my foot was broken the week before my race,) Buckle up for a bumpy ride while I navigate this taper period! Sand running- yay or nay?- I can’t believe I ran a SANDY 50K last year- I must have been insane. Does anyone in your neighborhood still have their Christmas lights up?- There are a couple people in our area who not only have their lights up but are still turning them on- I see them when I’m out for an early morning run.