After succumbing to foot aches almost all of last week, I've slowly but steadily been able to start running. Each day I've been going out with no distance, time or (by definition,) speed goals. I would run short loops until I felt my foot begin to respond negatively. Then I would shuffle home immediately and ice it. Each day the general discomfort would be less and show up later in the run. I am now only having a bit of warm up aches which disappear by about 2k and I am able to hit 10k easily without any foot pain. I am still icing it and being very careful not to become stranded far from home with an aching foot, but I think it's more or less fixed.
Interesting thing I've noticed since coming back from no running - my endurance pace is sort of locked into my muscle memory, but the combination of slightly de-training and allowing my body to recover has my heart rate higher than I'm used to, by somewhere between 10-20 bpm. With that in mind I've slowed my pace a bit, but it's very hard to keep my heart rate under that 170 mark (I suspect this is the transition from predominantly burning fat to burning carbs). I guess I just have to be patient and let my body get used to training again.
Soup, this officially marks my first week of base training for my run block. The main goal is to push up the volume of running from what I'm used to (30-40km/week) to something closer to what good runners do (a lot more). Week one is all easy running, as much as I want but not trying to push the volume too high. However, if I feel comfortable going high, I'll keep going. So far I'm at 40km and am plenty comfy. If I don't feel like I'm getting any negative, over-doing-it bodily feedback, I will allow myself to go as high as 70k. Since missing my first week I may take a quality week out of the plan to ensure I get those 3 solid base training weeks, or I might just take out a base week... But either way I still have a couple weeks of increasing volume to go. I don't want to max out in the first week.
As a final note, I may slot in a trail race in the fall so I have been taking advantage of the awesome trails around Sault Ste Marie. Hiawatha park is where all my high school XC races were and has some of the most intense, hilly, sandy and generally best trails I've been on. Amazing mountain biking and xc skiing as well, though I've never really done either of those. For instance, Within 1800m you get the opportunity to meet the Sand Hill and Cement Hill. Sand Hill is about 300m of sand, averaging a 13% grade, and the Cement Hill puts the nail in the coffin with 1k averaging 6%. In about 1 hour of running you'll get maybe 10-15 minutes of flat. You're typically on a gradient of +- 2%. Good luck keeping a low heart rate.
Adam "Sand Hill" Fortais
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