Lots of miles. Lots of slow miles, actually and about 2 fast/long workouts per week. My body is still adjusting to the volume. I do get a glimmer now and again that the miles are sinking in and I am becoming stronger.
It is really amazing how training is such a huge leap of faith. We train through some pretty brutal workouts, niggling injuries, life drama, and utter fatigue; all with the hope that the stress we put our bodies through will eventually lead us to achieve our goals whether they be running a fast time, running a longer distance than ever before or just challenging ourselves to stay fit and focused on good health. One of my goals is to challenge my body in a new way through higher mileage and (so far) my body seems to tolerate it fine. I had lost my confidence in being able to run high mileage but I think I just needed to slow everything down to tolerate the volume. I call my slow easy runs "mitochondriacal runs" to remind myself that slow running serves an important purpose too. I *heart* mitochondria! New t-shirt logo?
Lately, I have been feeling less fatigued in my runs and, even though my running is not very fast, I know it will be soon enough. In the past, my fitness gains have come in giant steps. I am waiting to grow my frog legs and take that giant leap forward. I don't know when it will happen, but I will look back on all of this work and remind myself that it was good old fashioned slogging and hard work that got me there, with a side of trust in the process.
Yes, a very in-crowd but cool T-shirt logo. I like mitochondria too! I'm sure the volume will pay off -- you'll be racing faster than ever, no doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ewen! Fingers are crossed on that. I'll ship you a t-shirt if they ever materialize!
DeleteHi jaymee, good to hear your training is coming along nicely! Since you mentioned fatigue (which anyone who's ever built up mileage can relate to...) I'm curious - how much fatigue and slogging is an acceptable level for you? Or do you not feel sloggy that often, but simply a bit tired? I have a really hard time determining if I should push through sloggy dead legged phases, or back off before I overreach/overtrain. You've written about being a fan of large amounts of running data, do you use that data to determine if you're recovering properly? Is there an app for that?
ReplyDeleteWell, that turned out to be way more questions than I intended :)