Week 5 Training Update

Time for a brief training update.

The numbers:
Total weekly mileage: 51.6 miles
Average Intensity Factor: .90
Long run: 11 miles
Average weight: 121.85 (-1 lb.)
% body fat: 17%
Average hrs. of sleep: 6.85

My training weeks are 4-week cycles (3 weeks of building and 1 week of recovery) so week 5 was the first week of a new cycle.

I ran additional recovery runs later in the day after Tuesday and Thursday's hill repeat/ fartlek sessions. These additional recovery runs are new to me, but they do seem to be working out well. I make sure I allow 11-12 hours in between runs, and I keep the pace slow. I'm finding these additional easy runs in the evening are not compromising the next day's regular run.

One thing I've noticed this week is a pattern of having a crappy run after a day off. After taking Sunday completely off, on Monday (the first run of the week) my legs feel dead and I feel sluggish. I've heard this is true for other people, too. I just don't know what, if anything, to do about it. Maybe I'll experiment with a 20-30 minute jog on Sunday and see if I feel better on Mondays. I know that if I don't try something, eventually I will come to dread Mondays.

A note on my long run this week: I was at Camp Daniel Boone at Webelos Woods. I did an out-and-back run, since that was all that was available. It was 5.5 miles down hill, then 5.5 miles uphill. This would NEVER be a course I would choose to do if I had other options, but in hindsight, I'm glad I did it. It was especially demanding, and I bet I got a lot of benefit from running that last 5 miles in such a fatigued state.

Next week: Add a third recovery run on Saturday and experiment with light running on Sunday as a way to avoid feeling sluggish on Monday.