Half Marathon Training – Week 5 – Tired legs
Coming off Sunday’s 5K personal best (23:08 ooh yay!) I started week 5 with tired and tight legs. I took Monday as a rest day to recover but I probably should have considered delaying Tuesday’s speedwork session. I made it through the intervals by my hamstrings were pretty tight and my piriformis muscle started to bug me towards the end of the run. The one concession I made was not doing any lower body weights at the gym on Wednesday morning. Then on Thursday I did a 6 mile tempo run. So if anyone is counting that’s basically 3 hard fast sessions in 5 days. I should know better! I knew it wasn’t going to feel good when all I could do was 9:17 in the first mile. I just tried to do each mile a bit faster and with the exception of miles 2 and 3 I managed to achieve that.
Friday was a scheduled rest day and by then I’d smartened up. I was all about recovery and taking it easy. I did walk home from school (something I’ve been doing a lot more often recently) to try and stretch things out a bit. I did an easy run on Saturday afternoon and was relieved to see that my legs felt a bit better. I decided to try and keep my HR really low and felt like I was moving at a shuffle but it turns out the pace was pretty normal for me for this type of run. My legs felt pretty good for Sunday’s 14 miler. I was pretty much fine until mile 12 and then I just wanted to be done.
So all in all it was a pretty good week even though I probably pushed my legs harder than I should have. I should have been more flexible about moving my schedule around or even canceling a hard session if it’s just too much. I’d rather be undertrained and healthy than perfectly trained by injured!
| 09/02 | - | Rest day |
| 10/02 | 7.0 mi | Speedwork: 7x1000m in 5:16/5:05/4:59/5:04/5:04/5:06/5:04 (1:18) |
| 11/02 | XT | 50 min on elliptical plus upper body weights |
| 12/02 | 8.0 mi | Tempo run (moderate): 6.0 mi in 9:17/8:59/9:00/8:50/8:47/8:40 |
| 13/02 | - | Rest day |
| 14/02 | 4.0 mi | Easy run: avg 152 bpm, 10:49 min/mile |
| 15/02 | 14.0 mi | Long run: avg 164 bpm, 10:46 min/mile |
| Total | 33.0 mi | YTD: 168.5 mi |