Forced Recovery Week

I decided to ramp up the core and strength work this week and paid the price for overdoing the leg weights. Picked up sore quads after Wednesday's weight training session, which I only made worse by doing the midweek medium long run afterwards.

Weekly summary is as follows:

Monday (7/2)
AM - 11 km's - 53:23
PM -  11.7 km's - 56:27

Also did core work & light leg weights.

Tuesday (8/2)
AM - 8.5 km's - 40:00
PM - Straights & Curves - 5,000 metres - 16:25 - Surprised myself by running a 12 second PB. Floated the curves & worked the straights. Total 15.3 km's including warm-up & warm down. Nice confidence booster.

Wednesday (9/2)
PM - 25 km's - 1:57:55 - Aerobic fitness great. Ran over undulation hills and average H/R was only 127. Quads really sore though. Did core work and leg strength training beforehand. Probably overdid the leg press work.

Thursday (10/2)
PM - Had planned to do 16 km's with 10 x 100 metre stride-outs towards the back end. Could only manage 10 km's in 46:42 before my left quad hurt immensely and I could no longer manage even a slow jog. Had to walk/limp the 6 km's back home.

Friday (11/2)
Too sore to manage even a jog or work-out on the eliptical machine. The best I could manage was 20 minutes on the rowing machine but this type of training doesn't really get my heart rate going much above brisk walking pace rate. I was feeling pain in the left quad doing the roing so had to go easy. Followed the rowing with around 60 minutes of core work.

Saturday (12/2)
AM - 8 km Tempo in 28:28. Aerobic fitness was good but I was feeling too tendor in the left quad to pick up the pace. The last 3 km's were quite uncomfortable. All up 13 km's of running including a 4 km warm-up and 1 km warm-down. Too sore to do more in the warm down.

Sunday (13/3)
AM - 27 km's -2:04:53. Really struggled with pain in the left quad after 6 km's or so. Had hoped to do a progressive paced 30 km long run. Could only manage 27 km's before being forced to quit. Was disappointing to pull up early as I was doing it very easy breathing wise. Average H/R was only 124, which suggests my fitness is pretty good. Usually this would be jogging intensity.

All up only 125 km's for the week (9:39 hours). I'm taking a glass half full view here. Sure I'd prefer to have done the usual 150 or so km's of running and completed my long run today, but a forced recovery week shouldn't cause any real problems. I'm quietly confident that the quad isn't too bad and really only needs a little rest. There's a little spot bruising and it's still uncomfortable to even walk, but touch wood I'll wake up tomorrow morning feeling fine. Will probably only do some water running tomorrow and will continue with this until the quad is good to go. Hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday I can resume normal training.

I've an important tune-up race next week. Will be doing a 5 km warm-up followed by 25 km race afterwards. The plan is to run to heart rate (160 average) to guage where my marathon pace fitness is at. The course is over undulating terrain. I will give myself a small min taper with only easy days planned for the Friday & Saturday before the race.