Overdone it?

24567948

Comments

  • Sorry - I have one other question about the Achilles - you may know answer - if it gets worse is it likely to be just a gradual getting worse where it becomes too sore to run = rest a while; or could it simply rupture = the end?

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Unless you have an incredibly weak achilles, are doing way too intense training or are very unlucky, I'd say you don't have to worry about a rupture, it's a fairly extreme injury.

    The stretching is essential, as is not doing any explosive or fast running without a good warm up. That's why we always include the 2-3mile easy pace warm up before your 1 quality session.

    As a rule of thumb is something hurts or aches to walk, don't run.

    Backing off and stretching a lot, got me through achilles tendonitis myself. Very key for you to monitor though...

    In an ideal training plan, you'd have your tempo session a week, as you've been doing, and also a speed reps session. In your circumstances, you don't have enough mileage to play with to add a second quality session.

    However, i think we can acheive that syub 1hr 35 goal from the weekly tempo and long run. Those are key.

    Your old paces got you used to working too hard each run, meaning you were never fresh, probably a reason why the achilles is sore these days.

    I'd envisage that that will start to ease down, and the new plan will work you out at the right levels, yet also keep you fresh to improve.

  • Thanks.

    Running track is £2.40 to use for as long as you want (or season ticket £66/year but closes at dusk so chuff all use to me for 6 months of year). Not available for general use Tuesdays and Thursdays as used by local athletics clubs (when they do put floodlights on). 

    Will report back next Monday as usual. Cheers, Skinny.

    PS I realise this thread is a very one way conversation (all about me!) and appreciate that - I know you have your own thread and therefore don't show any interest in you simply to save you having to post any more than you already are - thanks again for your help and advice - it is not only helping me plan my weeks running but the whole reporting back thing is very motivational.

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    We'll bear the track in mind, but will probably be able to work without one to be honest.

    No worries Skinny, i'll do my best to help you hit that target. Just need to bear with me as I'm not by any means a proper coach, but from experience should be able to point you along the right direction, as per so far!

    I waffle about my own running enough, so it's good to make this thread your own..no problems at all with that.

  • Hi Coach - things went a bit off schedule last night - worked late, had more work to do at home and wife had PMT (a heady cocktail!).

    So went out for less than an hour but I was ready for a bit more than an easy run (did 6.5miles easy Tuesday morning).

    So did 6.5 miles but after 2 miles I did 0.5 miles fast (well for me) three times with a mile recovery in between (about 8:45 to 9 mins/mile)

    My 3 splits were 3:03, 3:08 and 3:07 - was aiming for 3:05 (about a minute faster than my target HM pace).

    No ill effects afterwards or this morning (iced and stretched achilles again when finished).

    So I'm thinking I'll try and run 10 miles easy on Friday and do the Quality session on Sunday even though I said I wouldn't - by Sunday my wife will be angelic!image

    If I manage to do this it would mean that the 6.5m easy in the original session would have become 6.5m with three fast 0.5m thrown in.

    Is ths okay?

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    You've done 3x0.5m at 3k ish, so shouldn't be too harmful.

    If you could do the light quality session 10miles with 8miles steady (7.45-8.15pace) on Friday, that'll be better for your recovery, and then 8-10miles easy on sunday. Best to keep the structure.

    Being a steady paced session makes it quite light quality this week, quality is generally MP and above.

  • Holy sh1t - so I'm supposed to be able to run at that pace for the whole of a 3k race!image

    Thanks for prompt reply - will report back Monday.

    Cheers

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Your 3k would probably be a little slower than that in fairness.

    If your 10k is 6.52, 5k would at fastest be between 6.38-6.40 ish, so 3k probably in the 6.20 range So yeah, 6.06-6.16 is a notch up from 3k pace, which in fairness is why we wouldn't set you running at that pace! image

    A better bet, which we'll introduce next week, is having you doing strides, 5x75m at relaxed sprint type effort, within an easy paced run.

  • Full Week Report

    Tuesday morning – 6.5 miles in 8:32 pace. Achilles less sore, frozen peas again

    Wednesday – 6.5 miles including 3x0.5miles at 6:10 pace with 1 mile recoveries

    Friday – 10.5miles 1.25WU, 8 miles in 62:20 (7:47/mile), 1.25 WD

    Sunday – didn’t get back till after 8pm and wife had made a chicken dinner so never got out for a run at all. As a penance I got up this morning at 5.30am and ran 13.25 miles in 8:15/mile average which was mainly an LSR at 8:30/mile with a little bit of a stretch of my legs for about 5 miles in the middle (7:45/mile).

    This week on Sunday I am doing Cross Bay Challenge which is a HM across Morecambe Bay (tidal bay) including a waist deep wade across a river at about half way. My plan is to run first 8 miles at about 9m/m and enjoy being in the Bay then run last 5 at about 8m/m to have the race fun of passing people without really making it any more than an LSR.

    So I’m looking for a Tuesday night easy run and a Friday morning Quality run please then we can focus on the plan for last 8 weeks to get me down to 1:34 for the HM.

    Cheers, Skinny

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Skinny, won't be at all wise to do any quality this week, as you won't be able to race sunday at LSR effort, trust me, when the competitive juices come along, you won't be able to reign it in.

    Therefore, sunday will be your quality this week, feel free to race it as hard as you like though.

    Bearing in mind you have done 13 today, and sunday will be 15 with warm up and cool down, that's already 28miles, with your highest total mileage roughly 36 to date.

    Therefore, i'd go for a mere  4mile at easy/recovery pace tomorrow night, and then 6miles with strides on Friday. (5x75m fast relaxed pace)

    Making the full week

    M     13m  (you did this already in lieu of yesterday)
    T      4m easy/recovery  (slow as you like)
    F      6m with 5x75m fast relaxed strides thrown in 
    Su   15m (1m wu, 13.1m race, 1m cd)

    the week after the race will need to be a bit of a recovery week, but we'll see how you are sunday afternoon.

     

  • Thanks - still plan to run first half slow (whatever you sayimage) as don't want to spend what should be a very enjoyable run in running hell plus running on the sand and in the water might slow me up a bit anyway - we'll see whether you are right or I am but my competitive juices are really focussed on 1:34 on 7th October!

    Based on what you have said and fact it is supposed to be my quality run for week I'm going to aim for sub 1:50 which should not do too much damage to next weeks training but with a slow start still gives me scope to stretch my legs.

    Strides - is that a 75m sprint then once every mile after a mile WU or do I do them after more WU in a kind of concentrated effort spell?

    Also some sort of idea of how fast might save me from myself!! I'm thinking about 16 seconds per 75m?  

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    See how you go, and drop a mail on here or to my pm sunday evening to let me know how you feel, we'll go from there.

    Will probably be a good idea to give youa  3mile recovery run on the Monday, circa 9+ min miling to recover the legs a bit.

    In terms of strides, don't worry about timig these, just keep it relaxed but at a good pace, not all out sprint by any means. You don't have to keep them in a regular every mile sequence, just get a good mile in, and do the 6 before the last mile. It's to tick the legs over before the race effort.

    When i race, i do a run with strides the day before a race, but then i'm running 6 days a week, so you're ok as you are with this.

    As this race doesn't sound like it'll give us any basis to go off for your target half, I think it would be a decent idea for you to race a 10k in 3-4 weeks.

    Any flat fast 10ks you can find for that time? At worst, a 10miler?

  • Not a great deal of choice in Cumbria - not like down south - there is a 10 miler on 9th September but not really flat - don't seem to be any 10k's unless I go down to Blackpool which is about 100 miles away - I'd rather flog my nuts off on a run on my own and see how I get on - it's what I used to do once a week before you got involved!image

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    image Fair dos...awkward bit of the country.

    I've got a couple of real challenging sessions instead in the last few weeks...they will have to do.

    But we need to try to make sure it builds progressively...so after this week's race, and the recovery, need to make sure the sessions are done to plan as far as possible.

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    good luck today Skinny...let me know how you did asap...image

  • Hi coach - 1:51 ish - forgot to stop my watch and results not posted yet.

    Time doesn't tell full story.

    13.54 miles per my Garmin - distance is affected by route across sands.

    3 mins to wade through waste deep estuary river.

    But probably most telling factor was 10 miles into strong headwind with 3 miles of tailwind only. One way route across the bay.

    Will be interesting when results are published to compare some times to peoples best HMs on RunBritain Rankings to compare them to recent HMs on road.

    One person said 10 to 11 mins slower another said 20 mins slower so will need to wait and see how reasonable a time it was.

    Also started right at back of field which was a mistake as my first half mile was 10 minute mile stuff as couldn't get past the moving barrier! After that tho it was brill coz just ran through the field - don't think anyone ran past me in whole race.

    Achilles is a little sore tonight - about to ice it - but no worse than it has been.

    Will post again when I have a bit more time tomorrow and I've seen results. Great fun race though, but zero PB potential!

    Cheers, Skinny

    PS found a 10k race in Scotland which is flat on a Wednesday night - 5th September - I think for my own benefit I need to do this to gauge where I am.

    PPS You were right - once I was running and there were people in front of me no chance I wasn't going to race it!

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    good work, sounds a fun rampage rather than anything that will give us clues about the progress. Feel free to post your splits and any other details when you get them tomorrow.

    That 10k sounds ideal as a good chance to test where you are before the big target race. We'll build that in.

    Tomorrow, I think just 1x3miler will do you good....a recovery pace run, so as slow as you like. Tuesday will then be best set as a day off for full recovery.

    We'll see how you are end of Tuesday before setting the rest of the schedule...

  • Feel little stiff today but no serious aches or pains - will do gentle 3 mile today as suggested and plenty of stretching - rest day tomorrow sounds good.

    Race times now posted so can give more detail - but not got any splits - might plug in the Garmin tonight and have a look. Feel I need to give details below or you won't understand that 1:51 was actually not far off a target effort.

    Finished 49th (Gun) 44th (Chip) out of 569 finishers.

    Winning Time by John French was 1:32 but he has run a 1:13 HM on road. (he won by 3 and a half minutes!)

    Greg Keynes who beat me Gun and I beat Chip ran the Wilmslow HM in March this year in 1:31 and has run other HMs in similar times. He ran the BUPA Manchester 10K in May in 40:56 so that is a fair (but sounds pretty hard) target for 5th September. 

    Cheers, Skinny (PS I was a little disappointed myself with 1:51 even though I knew it was hard when running it so mighty relieved to find out how much slower other runners managed it too)

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Sounds like you're on track from the other racers, although can never use that as a 100% guide, as you don't know if they raced it as a tempo.

    if you feel suitably recovered by end of tomorrow, i'd see Wednesday being a 6mile easy, and then presuming all is well, a medium quality session friday, followed by a 13-14miler sunday.

    However, i'll firm this up from your feedback by close of play tomorrow. Week after a race certainly not the time to smash it....that'd take us to the end of week 7

    Week 8&9 will be full on weeks, and then your 10k race comes mid week 10. (5th Sep)

  • Hi coach - did the recovery run last night - curious as to what the point is?

    I'm ready for a 6 mile easy tomorrow and then medium quality should be fine come Friday with the LSR on Sunday. I'm going to a funeral this pm so this is my 'end of tomorrow' feedback.

    Really enjoyed the strides last week pre run by the way - think they helped on the run coz into the wind first 7 miles everyone was grouping with gaps between so I basically did strides between each group then slowed up, sheltered, got my breath back, then strides again to next group.

     

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    a short recovery run the day after a race helps the process of getting the waste materials out of your legs and getting the blood pumping again. Without one, you'll usually find you feel much tighter, and the recovery period is longer.

    Ok, so 6mile easy on wednesday, then..presuming you're still feeling good and recovered, let's go

    F   10m, 3miles easy, 3miles steady, 3miles MP, 1mile cool down
    Su   14mile easy

    (lightish quality on the Friday in light of your race on sunday....this Friday quality session will move back to Wednesay in future weeks...and ramp up in difficulty)

    Then that leaves 7 weeks until race day.

    I'd envisage splitting it ike this (*)

    week 1&2 building on your last week pre race
    Week 3 will be a light week with the 10k race midweek
    week 4&5 peak weeks, biggest mileage/quality
    week 6 some half marathon paced work
    week 7 , light taper week ending with the BIG half Marathon.

    Hope the funeral goes well pal, and we'll chat soon

    *Just to check, was your trip to America in week 5 (commencing 17th Sep) or week 6 (24th sep). Either way we'll work around it.

  • Trip to America week 5 - fly Sunday back Saturday - investigated where I am staying and about 2 miles from a large park which looks to have some running trails in it so just need to shake off my US colleagues now and I'll be fine!

    Report back Monday - cheers.

  • Hi coach - potential problem this morning.

    Ran about 1.5 miles easy then suddenly felt pain in my Achilles, not run stopping pain but definite pain rather than discomfort or being aware of an ache.

    Stopped and stretched my calves as they have been a bit tight last couple of days and my Achilles strangely have been fine. After a minute stretching started jogging again really slowly and seemed to have eased off so gradually built pace again over next half mile but then got pain again. At this point stopped and walked home. Not ideal because I was on a 6 mile loop! For most of walk it was no problem but every so often I got a stabbing pain that then went again.

    I've iced it for 15 mins and stretched since got home and feels fine.

    I'm thinking of going out and trying the Friday run as planned but doing it in 3 mile loops that way can stop as soon as get any pain and not too far to walk back - what do you think?

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Thought yesterday was your 6mile run? When you're running only 4 times a week it becomes more key to run as per the designated day where possible...if you have some days to avoid let me know early and I'll work around it.

    6 today, and then 10 tomorrow including medium quality would be too heavy going from your mileage...

    If there's any pain on walking simply don't run tomorrow.

    If it feels pretty good, try an easy paced run instead...won't be anything to gain from trying the harder session.

    May well be the best case to rest for the rest of this week, with maximum rest, stretching and icing. This was only a light week post your race, so won't affect the overall picture.

    Are you stretching the calf as well as the achilles? The 2 are massively connected. Do your shoes have plenty of life left in them?

  • Throughout the training I have sometimes swapped a night run to early the next morning but on this occasion problem was I slept in yesterday morning - as it happens probably wouldn't have got very far anyway. I will try and be more religious about the day from now on.

    Currently no pain on walking but will elave any run till tomorrow night so I have full day of walking around to be clear on how it feels.

    I will see how it feels and make a call on 6 mile easy or total rest.

    My Asics Gel Nimbus 14s are only 2 months old and have done just over 200 miles so should be no problem there.

    I understand link between two and am stretching both regularly every hour - am also trying rolling an orange round on my calf - am in meetings all day today and already had some funny looks!

    Fingers crossed it will be back to normal by tomorrow.

    Cheers 

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Good work Skinny...it's always a mixture of the "Best" approach v reality of life and fitting the training in...in the main part, the subs you've made have been reasonable, but because we're nursing your achilles, recovery time is paramount.

    From my experience of achilles aches early on in my running, I remember that the achilles is a tricky area as it's so thin, and gets poor blood flow. Therefore, it often starts off achey, but eases once flood flow strengthens.

    All you can do is the 4 or 5 stretches between the 2 areas, and ice in the evenings. A physio appointment would be the next step.

  • Okay - after a day of stretching and rolling that flipping orange my left calf (its all my left leg) felt like a bloody rock.

    Went home and got the massage oil out and spent an hour massaging the calf - the problem area seems to be the top of the calf on the inside - even after an hours massage it was still pretty solid.

    Ordered a foam roller which will arrive next Thursday.

    Overal the calf feels better today but the top inside is still sore and solid - I guess I'll just repeat the treatment today and see where I am tomorrow.

    My understanding is that the problem is in my calf - my calf muscle is tight and that is making it difficult for the Achilles to stretch as far as it needs to - this is giving me some discomfort in the Achilles but nothing serious and if I can loosen the calf then the Achilles should improve (of course if I don't improve the calf then the Achilles will get worseimage) - is that roughly a correct desription of my problem?

    If that is correct should I actually be icing the calf rather than the Achilles? Or both?

    Finally I am concentrating on the bottom half of my legs as don't feel any similar problems above the knee - but is it possible that by not stretching my hamstrings I am putting pressure on my calves or does the knee separate these muscles?

    If you don't know then I can post this on an injury thread - problem then is you get eight different opinions and one quite knowledgeable one is all I really need! Plus there are loads of similar threads already many of which I've read - hence the ideas of the orange, massage and foam roller which I'd never heard of before.

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Skinny, it's key to develop a regime where you stretch all key zones.

    Back, hips,hamstrings, calf and achilles should all be on your radar.

    A couple of days rest would give you a chance to get the regime started. I posted a list of stretches a few pages back.

    However, it may come to a point you need to see a physio. I'd recommend getting into your doctor's surgery asap...to at least get the ball rolling on an NHS physio...the wait will be longer compared to private, but you have the security of knowing that they'll do their best to heal you, rather than spinning it out for more cash.

  • I have misexplained myself - I have done those exercises once a day whether running or not since you 'prescribed' them (other than glute - sounds like a pain in the backsideimage). What I meant was that I am hourly focussing on just bottom half of leg as that is where problem is and just wondered if I should also be doing hamstring hourly as well - after all work is only so important when you have 1:35 to beat in 7 weeks!image

    I do actually have private health insurance through work but not sure what it covers and you need to get referred by your GP before you can go so I'll make a GP appointment just to get ball rolling (I need a new blue inhaler anyway).

    Thanks for advice - no running today and will just monitor Saturday and Sunday - if I do feel better by Saturday night do you think a 6 mile easy would be way to go for a first run back or should I try even shorter and check no reaction?

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    No need to work the hamstring that much, couple of times a day as part of your overall regime will be enough. Calf/achilles stretchign where you can, just nipping off to the steps to do some dips every so often is useful.

    Just a 3miler as a comeback run would be an easy way back, stopping on any pain. Problem with running is that often adrenaline can mask problems..

Sign In or Register to comment.