Training Challenges

As I trained for Green Bay, I experienced more challenges this year than I did for last year's race and the Chicago Marathon -- combined.

Sickness
At the end of January, a few weeks into my training, I was laid up for a week due to a nasty head cold. After a 10 mile run on Sunday, January 29, I spent the rest of the week fighting the cold that drained all my energy and required me to use about five boxes of Kleenex. I did not run again until Tuesday, February 7.

Injuries
On February 16, I ran a faster tempo run (a fast-paced, 3-5 run that is at about 90% capacity) after a long day at the office. Though the run felt good, soon after I was done, my right hamstring felt less than wonderful. I started to apply ice that night. I did not run the following day. On Saturday, I ran 7 miles and the hamstring loosened up after the first mile. I thought I was out of the woods with the injury until about a week later when, I notice it bothering me on another 7 mile run.

The next day, Sunday, I ran 9 miles. As a consequence of the hamstring injury, my body placed more stress on my left leg. This equated to the development of my very first shin splint. For the rest of Sunday, it felt as if someone had kicked me in the lower left leg. The following day, I traveled to Florida to see family. Walking around the airports hurt like no other. Despite my intentions to do so, there was no running in Florida, just rest and ice. Fortunately, this seemed to do the trick as I was able to run 8 miles on Saturday, February 4 and 14 miles the following day without any discomfort. The shin split never returned.

Weather
This year it was harder to roll out of bed in the morning when it was dark, cold, and windy. Gotta love Wisconsin winters. Compared to last year, there were a few more days this year where roads and sidewalks were covered in snow and ice, so I had skipped running on these days ... and slept.

Training Program
My original training was too ambitious. The original plan was to run 5 days a week. After my long runs on Sunday, the schedule called for me to run 3-5 miles on Monday and then 7-10 miles on Tuesday. Mentally, I could not do it. I needed a day (or two) to recover from my long run on Sunday. Also, I prefer to leave for the office (to avoid traffic) by 6:45, so this made running 7-10 miles on Tuesday difficult without waking up at 4 AM (and I struggle to run after work).

By the end of March, I adjusted my plan so Monday was a rest day, Tuesday was the shorter run (3-5 miles), Wednesday was a bit longer (5-7 miles), and Thursday was a different type of workout (i.e., tempo run, sprints, hills, etc.). Friday was a rest day and the weekend consisted of two runs: a shorter run on Saturday and a long run on Sunday. This planned worked pretty well, though Thursdays became more of rest days too given a pattern of crappy weather, personal travel, and lack of ambition.

Moral of the Blog Post
I realized that if I took a week off, or even a couple days, nothing significant happened. There was no a drastic regression in my strength. I was still able to run my long runs on Sunday and, as the times in the few races I ran prior to the marathon indicated, my speed did not suffer. In fact, I would venture to guess that being overly cautious about the injuries helped minimize my downtime.