Today was supposed to be the third and final 20 mile run. My original thought was to use September to extend beyond 20 miles (23 miles, then 26 miles, then begin a taper), but I've recently been debating whether to do that or not. More on that later.
Regardless, I had intended today's run to be 20 miles. However, after only a few miles, it was apparent that I still was not fully recovered from this past weeks activities of 150 miles biking and an extra tempo run on Monday. My legs felt fine, and I was pleased at my HR, which spent a lot of time in the 130's as opposed to the mid-upper 140's - but my foot turnover just seemed sluggish and I didn't feel quite as fleet of foot as I normally do. Typically, when I get my cadence up, I look at my watch and see an 8:30 min/mile pace or better - today when I felt like I was doing all the right things, I was seeing over 9 min/mile. It's not that a slower pace is necessarily a problem in and of itself - but I took it as a subtle sign that my legs were not as recovered as they usually are.
It is not uncommon when I first wake up to feel my left IT band. The majority of the time, after I've been up and been moving around, it goes away - the only time it may be more persistent is after a legs workout. However that is to be expected, so I don't mind that, especially since it never conflicts with the upcoming weekends' workout. So this morning when I woke up and could feel the IT band a bit, I figured it'd be one of those situations where after a mile or two, muscles would warm up and it would go away. That is a fairly common occurance of events. Unfortunately, today it just didn't seem to go away that easily. There were times when it would, but then it would come back. Then I'd realize my cadence slipped, which led me to think that my legs were not recovered enough to maintain cadence, and thus I probably should not go through with the full 20 miles. At around mile 3 or 4, I decided I'd just do the loop I was on, end up at 10 to 11 miles, and call it a day. My thinking was the following - having done 20 miles before, the mental aspect of my doing another 20 today was not a necessity. Therefore, if I did a full 20 miles today, there'd be little if any benefit. However, the downside of continuing on, and potentially igniting ITB issues has major implications. So, it was actually a simple choice. It turned out to be a good one, I think - because at mile 10 I was feeling the IT band rubbing - and so far this year when I've felt it like that, I've been best served by stopping.
So, at the moment I'm a mix of being disappointed, but also acceptance. I have put a good amount of stress on my legs this week with the riding, and the extra day of running - not to mention that some of the riding and running took place on the same day. Thursday morning I woke up and knew I was too drained to have made the bike ride, and I was hoping that the extra day of rest would suffice - apparently, it did not. The other thing is that not just this week has been stressful, but the entire month has been. Two 20 mile runs sandwiched in between two century bike rides, and when I look back and July and August, they each had about 30 hours and 330 miles of training each. It has been an intense couple months. I remember when following Galloways training plan, he basically had one day of rest between LSD runs per mile, rounded up to the next week cycle. So, for a 15 mile run, it would be three weeks before the next LSD run. By only going two weeks between 20 mile runs, I haven't been giving myself as much rest, nevermind the bike rides. Then, in Daniels book, he goes less by mileage and more by time, to help account for the different speeds of different people. In his view, a train to complete plan caps out at 2.5 hour long runs, although there are several of them. In other words, regardless of how you slice it, for someone just trying to complete the event, there is no question that the past two months have been stress-inducing.
Now the question is what to do from here on out. I may shoot for the 20 miles again next weekend, or I may wait a couple weeks and do something like a 23 mile run in mid-September. No matter what, I think one thing I learned recently is that I should grant myself a good three weeks of taper before the marathon in October. I was going to do two no matter what, but a third would probably be better.
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