Long Run – Building Back the Distance

This week I did my usual Sunday long run on Monday instead. Since I had been up in Squamish climbing all weekend I was WAY too tired to head out for my run by the time I got home Sunday evening.

Monday was a beautiful day in Vancouver and perfect running conditions, sunny and clear, not too hot. And all of the spring wild flowers are starting to come out which is great because I could smell them as I was running. Soooo nice to be outside. Since I’m still trying to build my distance back to where I was before the IT-band “issue” I was adding distance again this week – which also meant that I wasn’t pushing the pace. The advice from my physio when he said I could start again was to pick one – speed work or distance but don’t work on both on the same day. I was aiming for 30k and ended up doing 31, not too bad really. At the halfway point I was feeling great, lots of energy, no pain. I turned around and started back noticing by about 22k that my legs were getting a little fatigued. By 28k that little fatigue had turned into a LOT of fatigue, but I still felt good and I kept going. When I finished the run my pace wasn’t the greatest – I had slowed from the start – but it wasn’t horrible. Overall I felt pretty good about it.

So I’m not sitting at 31K for distance with 11.2 to add to get to marathon distance. Friday will be a speed/hill day and then it’ll be back to a long run again on Sunday. In between I’m doing some cross training (weights last night – but light weight/high rep), spending some time on my bike, a bit of climbing and some gym cardio. Should be a pretty good week!