Recovery mode

Last time I blogged, I was about to head off to Lake Mountain for a day of skiing. My silence since then has fortunately not been due to a severe spinal injury sustained during said skiing, rather simply and less excitingly due to a lack of time. We got up to the mountain around 9:30 and were gifted by a transformation of the falling rain into snow, which although unpleasant, was nowhere as bad as rain would have been. Nevertheless, it wasn't that enjoyable an experience. I was teaching my friend to ski and he made terrific improvement in a very short time period, getting together a half decent skate technique, which must hint at some latent potential there:) Although it was rewarding being a coach for the day, I ended up getting very cold and wet. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, because I'd be working so hard that my core temperature would remain high no matter how wet I became, but because we were going so slowly, I became chilled to the bone and was really looking forward to getting back to the car. Evidently everyone else was feeling the same, because there was unanimous agreement to take the shorter route back to the carpark. In my eagerness, I didn't stop to confirm exactly which route was the shorter one in my mind, and hence I ended up at the top of the slope with the others nowhere in sight.

After fifteen minutes of frantic searching and interrogation of passing skiiers, I still had no idea where they'd gone, and feeling quite emotional yet realising if I waited any longer, I would put my health at risk, I skiied back down to the carpark. Imagine my relief when they came into my vision, apparently having just arrived and only slightly concerned about my absence:)

The trip back down to Melbourne in the heated car, while munching on tasty treats from the Marysville Bakery was a luxury beyond all others. I can't imagine how I managed it hitchhiking and staying in a tent just a week ago!

Having done just 13km of skiing (a number that I am luckily still able to report - I came perilously close to losing my Forerunner just days after I got it. It had fallen out of the front pocket of my bag and lay in the snow for anyone to take, though luckily my eyes were apparently the only ones keen enough.), I still had a bit of work to do to reach my target of 180km for the week. Ended up doing another hour (in addition to the 20 minutes I'd done in the morning) on the cross trainer and a 10km run in the evening. I was feeling great at the start of the run, hitting a decent pace (sub 4:30), when my achilles began to act up, and this time it wasn't just because my calves were tight. It was actual pain, and I had to slow down markedly to get home. Rather worrying, but more about that later.

Totals for the week: 180.92km/20:32 (Running: 90.83km/8:35 = 5:40 pace)

So that ended a four week macro-cycle. I was actually meaning to take last week as a recovery week but because I try to make my recovery weeks coincide with races and because I knew I wasn't going to be racing on Sunday, I just pushed through, which turned out to be not too bad a decision. After four straight weeks of hard training though, I really needed a recovery week, and so this week will be just that. It's quite likely I'll go skiing this Sunday again (46cm of snow, joy!), but if my dad's not up for that, I might do the Coburg Harriers' Half Marathon. If he does want to go, I'm planning on doing a 5k time trial by myself round the track.

I'm really keen on knowing what kind of shape I'm in right now. Looking back on my training this year, it's quite obvious that there is a distinct lack of hard workouts. I did lots of slow running, a bit of really fast running (15 second striders), but nothing in between. Every tempo run I did was an abysmal failure and quite rightly, I have done no VO2 max workouts. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why I haven't improved as much as one might expect considering how much more training I'm doing this year. It's not as if I was doing much interval training last year either, but I definitely did a lot more tempo runs that were actually tempo runs. Next year I'll definitely move my tempo run day to Friday because I simply wasn't recovered enough to do them on Thursday mornings.

In spite of my underdoneness, I'm still running quite a bit faster than last year, and I am very keen to take a shot at my 5k PB. My 8k time from 2 months ago would suggest that low 18s are a possibility:) I don't know whether I'll be able to manage that running by myself, but perhaps the Forerunner's Virtual Trainer will provide the 'rabbit' I need:P

Hmm and now back to the achilles: I was feeling very worried about it especially after it was even worse on Monday, but a decent run last night has brightened my perspective a little:) I did a lot of toe taps at work on Monday and Tuesday night, and I think that definitely helped. In any case, I was very pleased with Tuesday's run. I took my brother with me and we started off fairly slowly, but because I was feeling good, the pace rapidly increased to 4:20 and I challenged him to break his 4k PB. So we ended up running 19:30 (I would make a truely horrible pacer:P) and I felt fantastic the whole time. He sure didn't though!:P
"Let's just jog another 2km!"
"N" *heavy breath* "O!"
Seriously an impressive time though considering his age and that he only runs infrequently. I think he could easily run sub 19 if he did even splits. Looks like he might have the running bug now too:) He was talking about running (with hockey stick in hand) to hockey training from now on:O Sounds like a good way to get a Gebrselassie like running style:P (he ran to school every day with his school books clutched under his arm)