Training Log for Week 13 (March 26- April 1)

Weeks like these make it possible to reflect on a week and a month at the same time.

Last week in March

Marching on

Ideally, I’d have had a different week of running to report than I do now. My plan called for another peak week of running ending in the third 20+ miler of the training season. It was supposed to be the last harder week before a three week taper.

The body decided otherwise. It didn’t really like last week’s last long run, with its addition of garden work, and particularly complained in the upper part of the hamstring. I think I may have actually strained it and I decided to take off a few days. I made it to Tuesday before feeling like I should really get on the road again, and with a healed hamstring I had a few good runs. Then I found the bottom of my hamstring near my knee acting up, struggled through the rest of the week, and ended the week on a weak 10k and 30 miles.

I’m not complaining. Most plans call for a month of taper, which I’d say I accommodated pretty well with my 30 miles and lack of any workouts. It’s only my own pressure to have one more hard week that could make me disappointed in this week. Looking at the month overall, I had my second highest monthly mileage ever… just shy of 200 miles, and this included a good half-marathon race effort, two long runs, and all the workouts I was supposed to. If I can’t follow the plan to a “T” during taper, at least I’ve done all the hard work well beforehand, as a lot of you readers pointed out to me last time. Thanks again for the words of encouragement and advice!!

Looking forward, I’m flying back to Berlin on Tuesday, so I may or may not run until Thursday (which is also my birthday). I plan on taking it easy again this week and making it healthy to Sunday, when I may make a possible appearance in the Berlin Half-Marathon. Most of all, I plan on making it healthy to the marathon, which is now only 2 weeks and 6 days away!!

In a slightly related note, being home in South Florida brought me to old stomping grounds. One of these is the longer-run route from my house to a Publix in Parkland, where my Dad always did some of the week’s shopping and which always made for a convenient pick-up. The route through these Parkland suburbs was always pleasant, a lot of mini-hills with ample shade and grass to run through (hard to find in South Florida!). And they took me past Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, 5 miles from my old home. It’s hard to describe the range of emotions I’ve gone through since reading that news slip on February 14th and the subsequent reports. There’s shock, anger, hurt, disbelief, sadness, and a bit of hope seeing the conversation around gun control discussed a little more productively than in the past. Not that there isn’t more to be done- more ways of having constructive, civil conversation and actually seeing change that both sides can agree on, and this isn’t my political blog site, so I won’t expound on my opinions here. I can only say that these beautiful sunny skies continue to be tainted by the shooting at MSD (not Parkland High School, as I’ve noticed many are calling it-there is actually no such school), and it will probably take a lot of time to continue to heal from this. But seeing the outreach of the country and community does seem to help.