Week 5 of half marathon training begins. And what a dubious start. After my longest run since October 2013 on Sunday I started with a 4 mile recovery run at 9.19 min/mile pace. Nice and slow. I thought after my downhill running adventure that I might be sore on this run and after about two miles I noticed knee twinges and quad pain. But I guess I was still sleep-running as it didn’t seem that bad.
As the day wore on the quad pain got more intense. I had forgotten that my legs are not used to downhill running. Yikes! I felt that today my eyes never really opened at all and I was zombieing (new verb) my way through work. As luck would have it (or not) this was a crazy busy day and I got just about 30 mins break to have lunch in a 9 hour day. I spent 20 mins of this break icing my knee – it seemed a little swollen – and lucky for me I work in a lab with an ice machine. So I’ve got that going for me.
Last night we made pear and gorgonzola pizzas for dinner with a Greek salad. What can I say it was almost 60 F and it felt like summer.
My tolerance for blue cheese is pretty low and I just couldn’t manage to eat the leftovers I brought for lunch. This did not help my energy levels. I think I might have to start eating more than normal – I’ve lost 4 lbs in the first 4 weeks of training which isn’t good. I had extra snacks yesterday while I watched J make more homebrew.
Carrots and hummus. Yum!
So 4 weeks are done – that’s one third of the way through. Still loving it most of the time but the last three runs have been a bit of a roller coaster of feeling crappy followed by awesome followed by crappy again. Perfect timing for a rest day. And a check-up with the physiotherapist.
Weekly recap:
5 runs
Total mileage: 22.80 miles
Longest run of the year: 8.40 miles
Two strength workouts
Two yoga classes
Two trips to the climbing gym
Why can’t every week be a four day week?