Facing realities

As I was chasing (forlornly) after David and Jesse during this morning’s ultimately successful mile repeat track workout, I started thinking about how the getting fit process was taking a lot longer than my usual comeback journeys. Usually at this stage I would be seeing quick progress from week to week, bouncing back to pre-injury shape in fairly quick time. This time it appears the process is going to take a lot longer! Two major factors contributing to this I reckon.

One, and key, is that I have to remember that this comeback is following the longest lay off I’ve had from quality training since I started running more seriously give or take ten years ago. So I’m working from a lower base point than ever before. Two, I have to face the reality that I am getting older! This is the first time I have really thought about this as a concern! As I was a late starter taking up running I have tended to see improvement year on year on my training and performance, especially in the longer distances. Approaching 40, it may be that some of my best days are behind me. Obviously that’s not the way I am going to think but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a concern.

So what to do? Patience and belief in my training are the key words here! Be patient enough to not expect to be running low 16 5ks any time soon and believe in the training plans Tim and I are working on. I’ll get there……

In the meantime here’s a brief recap of my training since last week’s post (I’ve started using Dailymile to post my workouts so have changed the link on the side of my blog from r2w but I’m not sure it works unless you are registered on that site anyway). Regardless this is what has gone down since Thursday’s long run

Fri- 6 easy including strides and drills. Was going to take a rest day and do this Sunday but a planned night of revelry on the Saturday and a yucky Sunday weather forecast made the decision to bring this forward from Sunday an easy one

Sat- 10 including 6 mile AT tempo in 35:23. Compared to my (faster) 6 mile tempo run of three weeks ago this was a much more controlled performance and far less taxing. Coach has emphasized the need for me to stick within the assigned pace ranges for my workouts so I will make sure to do that rather than trying to hit times I believe I should be capable of and screwing the workout up!

Sun- off. It rained all day and I was hung over so good call! Total for week 58 miles (last 8 weeks since the ‘comeback’ started have been 25,31,37,42,51,35,52,58. 60 planned for coming week)

Mon- 8 easy. Felt sluggish and tired still

Tue- 9 including 4*1600 at JCSU track. Felt better today and hit the prescribed 5:20s fairly comfortably although the very brief one minute recoveries between each one made this workout very challenging!

The rest of the week will include a couple of easy days (with strides and drills on one of those days), a Saturday rest day, a long run Thursday and an LT Tempo workout Sunday. Onwards….