Week 1 (Recovery Week): I took nine full days off after the race, which is my longest break with no workouts in...I don't even know how long (I usually take 4-7 days off after a marathon or half Ironman). The amount of time needed to recover from an Ironman ranges quite a bit based on a lot of factors, including the source of the information and I will say that I waited until I felt like doing something again. I didn't feel an ounce of desire to be active or guilt about my sloth during those nine days, which tells me I did the right thing.
Week 2 (Wicked 10k race week): My first run back was short - only 20 minutes - but I was so excited to be back doing something again, and so excited to be doing it in a place I love love love (I had a quick overnight business trip to Blacksburg and running was literally the first thing I could think about doing when I got out of the car) that I took off like a bat out of hell...and I ended up paying for it. My couple miles were in the 8:20 pace range because I just couldn't help myself, but I had to walk a few times (those hills! that altitude!) and I was completely spent when I was done. There I was, a newly-minted Ironman with labored breathing, a sky-high heart rate, and muscle fatigue after a whopping 2 miles. I didn't realize until that moment that I wasn't recovering quite as quickly as I had expected!
My next run was 4 days later when I ran the Wicked 10k in Virginia Beach. This is an annual must-do for me, as it was my first 10k in 2011 and it's just so. much. fun! I've now run it 6 out of the last 7 years (I was so bummed about breaking my streak last year). I had no time goals at all in mind but as soon as the gun went off my legs just started moving. I locked into an 8:15ish pace during the first half mile and I felt amazing. Eventually, I felt less and less amazing, but somehow and for some reason I convinced myself to hang onto that pace I had dialed into so early, and I ended up finishing in 50:40 (8:10 pace). My 10k PR (from 3 years ago, i.e. the last time I raced a 10k) is 49:20, so I was really shocked to pull off a 10k only about a minute slower just two weeks post-Ironman. It was hard and at the end I felt like dying, but I did it.
Week 3 (City of Oaks Half Marathon race week): I had another race scheduled for the week after Wicked, so during the week I made it my goal to work back up to 2 runs during the week before the race. I just did a couple of easy 30-35-minute runs after work - nothing crazy!
I probably wouldn't have run City of Oaks this year (although it would have pained me because FOMO), but my brother-in-law was planning on running it and, like I said, FOMO. It's a decent-sized but relatively low-key race in Raleigh, and it's another one of my fall favorites (I've run the half 3 times now and the 10k once). It's one of the most challenging halfs I've run, which speaks slightly more to my not running super hard courses. I don't mean to detract from the toughness of the course, though, because it can be a pretty tough one. The first few miles are more downhill than uphill, but the middle miles more than make up for it as the hills feel like they just never stop coming.
I had been having random stomach issues all week, which is very unusual for me, and I thought they were mostly gone by the time race day came, but I started feeling pretty yucky on the mile walk from my brother-in-law's to the start line. I felt pretty terrible while I was running - it seriously felt like I was hungover, except I hadn't drank at all - and although I tried to avoid it, I spent a solid 2.5 minutes during mile 4 in a porta-potty. I still felt bad after that but not quite as hungover, and somehow that got me to the end of the race. The hills were more relentless than I remembered them being (which is always the case), and by the end I was just hanging on for dear life. I will say that doing an Ironman did help with my perspective...as awful as I felt, I actually didn't find it completely impossible to convince myself that I only had to run for 2 hours feeling that way. My brother-in-law's original goal was 1:55 and we ended up at just over 1:57. I felt badly about being the reason we missed 1:55, but 1:57 was still almost a 1-minute PR for him and it was actually a slight course PR for me!
Week 4: By this week I was chomping at the bit to get back into a training routine, I was ready to start working on smashing my 2018 goals. I hit up the gym twice, I did a spin class (my first time on a bike, other than commuting purposes, since Louisville, and I ran my normal 4 times.
Speaking of my runs....one of them was my first speed workout in quite a while, and it was a monumental disaster. I had 6 400m repeats at 5k pace, so I used my pace from my PR race back in April. Yes, it's over 6 months old and I'm not in the same shape I was then, but it seemed like as good a pace as any to use. I was huffing and puffing just after one interval - less than 2 minutes of running! - and wondering how it's humanly possible for anyone to run that fast for any extended period of time, let alone how I ran that pace for 3 straight miles, ever.
My 8-mile long run was yet another disaster - I picked a pace that I thought would be challenging yet reasonable (8:30) to shoot for, and it's a true miracle that I was only 15 seconds per mile off from that pace. It felt impossibly hard to run even close to that fast, which really bummed me out. I know I'm still coming
And that leads me to this next training block: preparing for the Kiawah Half Marathon. My cousin and I signed up to run this together earlier this spring, but I knew that with it being less than 2 months after Louisville, it would probably be more of a fun run for me than a PR attempt. Now that it's here, I've gone back and forth on that last part...on one hand, I don't know that I'm mentally ready to put in the work it will take to get back to a PR (my current one is from February 2016, and I've been focusing on long-distance triathlons (and slowing down) ever since), but on the other hand, I have some big goals for 2018 and I was kind of curious to see what baseline I'm working with.
A few weeks ago I had grand plans of speed workouts and bouncing back to prime half marathon shape, but the last few weeks have shown me that I'm just not ready for that yet. Believe me when I say I'm ready to be faster, to shed this lactic acid that's built up in my legs from long-distance cycling, and to run fast and free again, but I'm realizing that my body just isn't there, and I'm not going to get back to that place overnight.
With that said, my focus over the next few weeks is to continue running consistently, but to not worry about my pace. If I feel like having a fast day, I'll pick it up, and if I feel like having a slow day, I'll just cruise through my miles. The fact that I recently ran a pretty good (for me) time on a hilly course and a day when I felt yucky and wasn't even fully recovered from my IM yet gives me hope that I haven't yet lost all running progress I've ever made. I know I have a lot of fitness in the bank, I'm just feeling the effect of not channeling it specifically to running.
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