DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
18 Days to Go (DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS)
Let me preface this with, I don't get sick. Like I barely ever get sick. In the 10 years at my job, I've taken one sick day. So I've never experienced what I just experienced in my life. The sickness destroyed my training this week. I'm going to do something a little different. I'll post in the beginning what I was suppose to do and then for each day I'll explain how I chose to do what I did. So without further ado...
PROPOSED SCHEDULE
Date - Day - Scheduled Workout (Intervals within desired pace, Strength +/- 5 sec, everything else +/- 10 sec)
4/13/16 - W - Off
4/14/16 - R - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 9 miles @ 7:52 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
4/15/16 - F - 7 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
4/16/16 - Sat - 8 miles @ 8:53 min/mile
4/17/16 - Sun - 17 miles @ 8:33 min/mile
4/18/16 - M - 6 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
4/19/16 - T - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 4 x 1.5 miles @ 7:42 min/mile with 800m RI @ 9:45 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
Total mileage = 63 miles
Yea, so that didn't happen. But what did?
Wednesday - Off
While I was at work I noticed our lab was colder than usual. It gave me a chilling filling to be in the room. So I wore my light jacket, but I couldn't get warmer. I put on my winter jacket and couldn't get warmer. This absolute chilled to the bone feeling never left me even when I got home in my normal temp home. Thus, I decided to head to bed early at 7:30pm. I woke up around midnight in an absolute sweat. Like awful. Decided to get up to get a drink of water and change the thermostat. I collapsed on the way back to bed. This isn't completely unheard of for me. I've got a medical condition that during the middle of the night if I get up it can cause my blood pressure to drop dramatically and cause my body to shut down. Laid in bed for a while and was finally able to fall back asleep.
Thursday - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 9 miles @ 7:52 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
When I woke up the next morning, I could not get out of bed. I tried on three separate attempts and each time I collapsed only a few feet outside the room. I decided if I can't even stand for a few minutes I'm not capable of driving myself to work. Called in and decided to head back to bed. Woke up at 9:30am and felt better. Overall throughout the day, I felt fine (not 100%) but definitely better than the day prior. When the afternoon rolled around I felt good enough to try and complete my run as scheduled. NOPE... NOPE... NOPE... The warmup went as planned (9:45). But when the first split came in at 8:15 instead of 7:52 I was like ehh that's not good but I can be ok with that. Then 8:25, then 8:37, and I started to realize that my body was telling me I couldn't do it. I decided to shut it down, and the last split came in at 9:16. it felt like a shaken soda bottle inside my chest/stomach. Overall I was able to finish 5 miles, but clearly my body was suffering. I came home and felt ok, not great, but not awful.
Friday - 7 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
I woke up and felt fine. I started the day thinking I'll either do the Thursday Tempo this afternoon or another easy day as was scheduled. However as I started to eat breakfast everything went downhill in a hurry. I'll spare the details but I was late to work. I decided to go to work because I thought what happened in the morning had to be it. I moved my planned run to scrap the Tempo and it was going to be easy. I then spent more time not at my desk, then at my desk for the remainder of the day. It was awful. I should not have been at work. If someone wasn't completely depending on me I would have not been there or would have left early. As the day wore on, I came to the conclusion there was just no way I was running. Final outcome - took the day off.
Saturday - 8 miles @ 8:53 min/mile
I woke up and felt fine. I had my normal large breakfast. My wife, daughter and I went and watched my friend in a local half. Everything seemed settled so I decided to complete the easy run as planned. The run went fine and no issues during. However, as soon as I got home things turned again. It was awful. Again. I got the chills again. Ugh! I knew I had the last 17 mile run of the training session coming so I decided to go to bed early with the hopes of settling things down.
Sunday - 17 miles @ 8:33 min/mile
I woke up and felt fine. However, when I stepped on the scale I was very scared. I had dropped 7.5 pounds from Friday morning to Sunday morning. I was at a weight that is way below where I wanted to be. Normal pre-run breakfast. No issues prior to running so I decided to set everything up as if I were going to do the full 17 miles. So the desired pace was 8:33. Paces were 9:22, 8:41, 8:39, 8:55, 8:53, 9:03, 8:56, 9:20. I knew things weren't going well when my effort wasn't matching the output. I felt as if I were running an 8:33 but the paces were clearly not matching. I could tell there was a knot in my gut and it wasn't going away. After 8.5 miles I decided to pack it in and not risk further issues. Final outcome - 8.5 miles @ 9:02 min/mile. I could tell the energy to do the run just wasn't there. The rest of the day I felt fine and had little issues. I set out to keep eating my normal amount to try and regain all of that lost weight.
Monday - 6 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
Finally feeling better. Gained some weight back. I decided in the afternoon that if I felt good I'd run 8 miles instead of 6 miles. The purpose of today's run was to recover from the 17 miles, but since only 8.5 had occurred I probably didn't need a full recovery (6 miles) and instead treated the Sat/Sun as a 10/11 weekend. As far as pacing goes, I decided to keep it easy, but wanted my body to choose that easy pace. If the pace was between 8:53 and 9:33, then I'd do 8 miles. If above 9:33, then only 6. I ran 9:09, 9:09, 9:12, 9:12, 9:22, 9:08, 9:27 with a very consistent effort. Decided to do the 8 miles. Was very happy with were the paces feel and completing the 8 miles and felt that I was probably near fully recovered from whatever that sickness was. Final outcome - 8 miles @ 9:14 min/mile.
Tuesday - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 4 x 1.5 miles @ 7:42 min/mile with 800m RI @ 9:45 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
I decided to go for it and do the workout as planned. Success! Hit 4/4 paces and everything went well. The shoes feel a bit dead to me, but overall I was happy with the effort needed to complete the run. Hooray!
Overall Summary - Completed 39.5 miles instead of 63 miles.
So obviously not the ideal peak week. I was looking to put that last good week in before the long run taper begins. However, sometimes life chooses otherwise. So the question is, how will this effect all of the training I've done till now. Honestly, probably very little. It's not ideal timing, but I'd rather it happen now then 2 weeks from now during race week. I skipped one day and my two SOS workouts were truncated and not at pace. Honestly, if missing two SOS workouts near the end of training completely derails the entire 800+ mile training plan, then the plan is much more fragile than I thought. The key though is to not make any changes going forward. I'm not all of the sudden try and make up for missing SOS workouts with more difficult workouts or extend my long run this weekend. At this point, I've made most of the physical gains I can make. Now I need to maintain this fitness and most of all make it to race day healthy and rested. Things are winding down. Now it's time to start watching the weather and start thinking about racing strategy. I'm still super excited about the race. Watching the half marathon really got my juices following thinking that'll be me in less than 3 weeks.
Let me preface this with, I don't get sick. Like I barely ever get sick. In the 10 years at my job, I've taken one sick day. So I've never experienced what I just experienced in my life. The sickness destroyed my training this week. I'm going to do something a little different. I'll post in the beginning what I was suppose to do and then for each day I'll explain how I chose to do what I did. So without further ado...
PROPOSED SCHEDULE
Date - Day - Scheduled Workout (Intervals within desired pace, Strength +/- 5 sec, everything else +/- 10 sec)
4/13/16 - W - Off
4/14/16 - R - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 9 miles @ 7:52 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
4/15/16 - F - 7 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
4/16/16 - Sat - 8 miles @ 8:53 min/mile
4/17/16 - Sun - 17 miles @ 8:33 min/mile
4/18/16 - M - 6 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
4/19/16 - T - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 4 x 1.5 miles @ 7:42 min/mile with 800m RI @ 9:45 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
Total mileage = 63 miles
Yea, so that didn't happen. But what did?
Wednesday - Off
While I was at work I noticed our lab was colder than usual. It gave me a chilling filling to be in the room. So I wore my light jacket, but I couldn't get warmer. I put on my winter jacket and couldn't get warmer. This absolute chilled to the bone feeling never left me even when I got home in my normal temp home. Thus, I decided to head to bed early at 7:30pm. I woke up around midnight in an absolute sweat. Like awful. Decided to get up to get a drink of water and change the thermostat. I collapsed on the way back to bed. This isn't completely unheard of for me. I've got a medical condition that during the middle of the night if I get up it can cause my blood pressure to drop dramatically and cause my body to shut down. Laid in bed for a while and was finally able to fall back asleep.
Thursday - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 9 miles @ 7:52 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
When I woke up the next morning, I could not get out of bed. I tried on three separate attempts and each time I collapsed only a few feet outside the room. I decided if I can't even stand for a few minutes I'm not capable of driving myself to work. Called in and decided to head back to bed. Woke up at 9:30am and felt better. Overall throughout the day, I felt fine (not 100%) but definitely better than the day prior. When the afternoon rolled around I felt good enough to try and complete my run as scheduled. NOPE... NOPE... NOPE... The warmup went as planned (9:45). But when the first split came in at 8:15 instead of 7:52 I was like ehh that's not good but I can be ok with that. Then 8:25, then 8:37, and I started to realize that my body was telling me I couldn't do it. I decided to shut it down, and the last split came in at 9:16. it felt like a shaken soda bottle inside my chest/stomach. Overall I was able to finish 5 miles, but clearly my body was suffering. I came home and felt ok, not great, but not awful.
Friday - 7 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
I woke up and felt fine. I started the day thinking I'll either do the Thursday Tempo this afternoon or another easy day as was scheduled. However as I started to eat breakfast everything went downhill in a hurry. I'll spare the details but I was late to work. I decided to go to work because I thought what happened in the morning had to be it. I moved my planned run to scrap the Tempo and it was going to be easy. I then spent more time not at my desk, then at my desk for the remainder of the day. It was awful. I should not have been at work. If someone wasn't completely depending on me I would have not been there or would have left early. As the day wore on, I came to the conclusion there was just no way I was running. Final outcome - took the day off.
Saturday - 8 miles @ 8:53 min/mile
I woke up and felt fine. I had my normal large breakfast. My wife, daughter and I went and watched my friend in a local half. Everything seemed settled so I decided to complete the easy run as planned. The run went fine and no issues during. However, as soon as I got home things turned again. It was awful. Again. I got the chills again. Ugh! I knew I had the last 17 mile run of the training session coming so I decided to go to bed early with the hopes of settling things down.
Sunday - 17 miles @ 8:33 min/mile
I woke up and felt fine. However, when I stepped on the scale I was very scared. I had dropped 7.5 pounds from Friday morning to Sunday morning. I was at a weight that is way below where I wanted to be. Normal pre-run breakfast. No issues prior to running so I decided to set everything up as if I were going to do the full 17 miles. So the desired pace was 8:33. Paces were 9:22, 8:41, 8:39, 8:55, 8:53, 9:03, 8:56, 9:20. I knew things weren't going well when my effort wasn't matching the output. I felt as if I were running an 8:33 but the paces were clearly not matching. I could tell there was a knot in my gut and it wasn't going away. After 8.5 miles I decided to pack it in and not risk further issues. Final outcome - 8.5 miles @ 9:02 min/mile. I could tell the energy to do the run just wasn't there. The rest of the day I felt fine and had little issues. I set out to keep eating my normal amount to try and regain all of that lost weight.
Monday - 6 miles @ 9:32 min/mile
Finally feeling better. Gained some weight back. I decided in the afternoon that if I felt good I'd run 8 miles instead of 6 miles. The purpose of today's run was to recover from the 17 miles, but since only 8.5 had occurred I probably didn't need a full recovery (6 miles) and instead treated the Sat/Sun as a 10/11 weekend. As far as pacing goes, I decided to keep it easy, but wanted my body to choose that easy pace. If the pace was between 8:53 and 9:33, then I'd do 8 miles. If above 9:33, then only 6. I ran 9:09, 9:09, 9:12, 9:12, 9:22, 9:08, 9:27 with a very consistent effort. Decided to do the 8 miles. Was very happy with were the paces feel and completing the 8 miles and felt that I was probably near fully recovered from whatever that sickness was. Final outcome - 8 miles @ 9:14 min/mile.
Tuesday - 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile + 4 x 1.5 miles @ 7:42 min/mile with 800m RI @ 9:45 min/mile + 1.5 miles @ 9:45 min/mile
I decided to go for it and do the workout as planned. Success! Hit 4/4 paces and everything went well. The shoes feel a bit dead to me, but overall I was happy with the effort needed to complete the run. Hooray!
Overall Summary - Completed 39.5 miles instead of 63 miles.
So obviously not the ideal peak week. I was looking to put that last good week in before the long run taper begins. However, sometimes life chooses otherwise. So the question is, how will this effect all of the training I've done till now. Honestly, probably very little. It's not ideal timing, but I'd rather it happen now then 2 weeks from now during race week. I skipped one day and my two SOS workouts were truncated and not at pace. Honestly, if missing two SOS workouts near the end of training completely derails the entire 800+ mile training plan, then the plan is much more fragile than I thought. The key though is to not make any changes going forward. I'm not all of the sudden try and make up for missing SOS workouts with more difficult workouts or extend my long run this weekend. At this point, I've made most of the physical gains I can make. Now I need to maintain this fitness and most of all make it to race day healthy and rested. Things are winding down. Now it's time to start watching the weather and start thinking about racing strategy. I'm still super excited about the race. Watching the half marathon really got my juices following thinking that'll be me in less than 3 weeks.
