This week has been like a rollercoaster, one day thinking my chances of racing were totally out the window, the next thinking that this might still be doable. The ride isn't over yet...
After I posted on here on Monday night, I was feeling a little better about things. I woke up the next morning to do a morning run and once again was met with run-ending pain in my right knee (the original issue that I had, with the VMO). I made it 2.25mi. At that point I decided, "screw it, I'll revert to bike training to try to get me thru" and maybe that will help the range-of-motion and muscles in/around the knee. That night I jumped on the bike and put in a solid 35mi ride.
Weds evening I gave running another shot. Went 5 miles easy, but felt amazing. Just took it easy, came home got right on the bike and did a 1 hour ride with about 40min of hard intervals. Friday I took it easy again on the run and went 6 miles. This time I felt good for about 4-miles and was once again greeted with pain.
Tonight was to be my 'Take-it-or-leave-it' workout. I figured that I had to get some running in at race pace in order to see how it felt. The plan was, if there was pain, pull the plug on the workout, the race, everything and just be done. Amazingly, however, once I was at the track with the flats on and took out the first mile-interval, I felt no pain and instead felt like I had a month or so ago in workouts!! I did 3 x 1-mile on 1min rest w/no splits, just going by feel, followed by 2 x 400m on 1min rest. My splits were:
5:39
5:41
5:48
1:17
1:16
Admittedly, I could tell, aerobically, that there had been some down time as I was breathing harder and probably working at about 5% higher effort than I had been at the same pace a month ago, but I was able to run!!
I'm incredibly excited about the workout and the possibility that it gives me for next week. Granted, my knee/VMO was hurting pretty good at the slower pace while jogging home, but it seems that while running at a faster pace, and in my flats, things came together and alleviated some of the stress that the legs otherwise would have felt. I know tomorrow will be a tough run (and possibly painful), but I am going to bed tonight feeling significantly more confident than I have in weeks.
It was October 13th when the shit hit the fan in my training. That's about 3 full weeks of reduced mileage and mental stress/worry, but for some reason I am beginning to believe again (at the last moment) that this may be doable... am I crazy?
No comments:
Post a Comment