Friday, September 24, 2010

Week 4 part 1 (of 1)

Knee pain and swelling, plantar fasciitis, and allergies have limited my training the last couple of weeks. I'm definitely not up to the schedule ol' Hal Higdon has cooked up. I've settled on a regimen of running three days a week and lifting at least two days a week. No post last week because I was getting brutalized at work and only ran twice.

I've changed my running up a little bit. For one I'm trying to run outside more often. When I do have to run on the treadmill, because it's dark or raining or whatever, I set the incline on the treadmill to 1. I read that this should more closely approximate trail running. Outside I tend to run a little slower than 8 min/mile, but I'm never gassed at the end. I seem to have a very poor internal clock, and without a watch or distance markers I settle into a slower pace than I would like. On the treadmill I'm doing 4 miles with the incline up at 1 in around 31 minutes (last night was 30:57, Monday was 31:32). I keep hoping that the treadmill running will train the correct pace into my motor memory, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

Right now my plan is increasing my runs by ~10% per week. This week I'm doing two runs of 4 miles and one run of 5 miles. Next week will be 4.5 miles twice and 5.5 miles once (12% increase). I'm still shooting for 10k at 8 minutes per mile. Once I build up to a long run of about 8 miles I'm going to try and add one day of speed training where I do 4x400m sprints* with 400m walk between each one, eventually building up to 8x400m.

I try to ice my knees for at least 15 minutes after each run. I don't know if it's just the increased rest or the ice or a combination, but my right knee has not been hurting or swelling as much recently. Of course, the arch supports could also be helping.

Yes, arch supports. Why didn't anyone ever tell me I needed arch supports before? I've never known what it's like to run and not have my feet hurt afterward. Turns out my recurrent plantar fasciitis and knee pain might simply be because my feet have the same contour two-by-four.

Studying continues. Nothing much to report there other than the iPad my department gave me seems useless as a board prep tool at this point. Actually, it seems pretty useless for most things.










* Let's not get carried away here. My sprint of a 400m is probably around 100 seconds right now. With training I'd like to get it down to around 70 seconds.

2 comments:

Snake Diggity said...

My goal for the 10k in March is to break 50 minutes. Not sure of how to go about ramping up, been holding steady at running a 5k in ~28 minutes twice a week, lifting weights once a week, and playing volleyball once a week. For now I'm planning on upping the runs to 6 miles starting in November, but not sure if there should be an intermediary step in there (i.e. 4 mile runs in October before making the jump to 6 miles).

Keep on it. You would probably smoke that ass if we ran together today. But I've been lucky in that I have virtually no health concerns from running. Unless you count sloth.

Ojo Rojo said...

"Unless you count sloth."
LMAO