Okay, last I posted I had failed to complete the final 2 miles of my 15-miler on Saturday and had self-diagnosed iliotibial band syndrome. Of course, I'm not a doctor but I don't mind playing one ... on myself!
I prescribed rest and trying an ITB strap while running. Not surprisingly, I took my own advice. So I went 3 days without running and I picked up the strap at a local running store. Interestingly, I lifted weights yesterday morning and didn't notice anything wrong with my legs during or afterward.
So, I figured it was time to get back to running this morning. I put my new strap on and made my way to the high school track at a pedestrian pace. Everything felt fine.
Once at the track I ran the scheduled ladder of 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, and 200. The times were supposed to be:
4:51
3:55
3:07
2:16
1:31
0:45
My actuals were:
4:47
3:58
3:08
2:14
1:23
0:37
The workout felt good and I was happy to be "on" my times. The strap bothered me a little bit near the end as it seemed to slip a bit once I got lathered up (it was 72 with 87% humidity this morning ... at 4:45 ... yes, it is November 14!) More importantly, the right knee didn't bother me at all. I was a bit tentative at first but "put the hammer down" for the last 2 intervals. The knee held up fine.
So after picking up my shirt and water bottle, I walked from the stadium and started the 1.5 miles for home. BOOM! There goes the knee! I have no idea what this is. It's unlike any injury I've ever had playing baseball, basketball, football, running, etc. How can I go from busting it on a tough interval workout to effectively paralyzed? The situation on Saturday was similar. I had run negative splits for 12 miles followed by a +2 second 13th mile when I stopped for a traffic light. After the light when I tried to go, the knee wasn't cooperating. This whole thing is weird.
Oh, I failed to mention that I found a few strengthening exercises that I started doing on Monday. Maybe that's what delayed the onset today until after the speed part ... ? I'll stick with the exercise that I'm doing and add a couple that I found on the Runners' World website.
Interestingly, I almost hit every single split today (with the Garmin's lack of exact precision on distances, I calibrated each interval to be slightly longer than scheduled ... so I like to think that I hit every one). This FIRST training program is very challenging as I mentioned before but it seems that I have a relatively easier time with the speed workouts and really struggle with the endurance workouts. FIRST posted this to their website (Furman Institute of Running & Scientific Training):
"In our studies, we have found that some runners find the track intervals difficult but find the long run pace easy and conversely, some find the track intervals easy and are very challenged with the long tempo and long run paces. Some runners have more speed than endurance and vice versa.
What we emphasize to the runners in our program is that we want the track intervals to have a very small range for the entire workout. After each week we adjust the target training times based on the most recent training performance. We attempt to find target paces that are realistic and challenging, but not so difficult that the runner is unable to recover for key workout #2. By insisting that the entire set of repeats be run with a range of only a couple of seconds, it pretty much ensures that the runner isn't overdoing it."
Apparently, I fall into the category of having more speed than endurance. This is actually pretty funny to me because I openly acknowledge that I'm pitifully slow!
I plan to try this week's tempo run tomorrow night.
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