Training Log Archive: Peds

Headache similar, maybe slightly better than yesterday, even after a couple beers last night. Reckon another short jog tomorrow. Also, felt my pecs (being kind) jiggle as I descended some stairs and I didn't like it. Thankfully the appetite is finally coming down slightly.

Work going well though and enjoy the walk across the meadows every time.

C • Man tits 1

Bit more tired and headachy today, even slept in past 7am which is rare. Excellent from a work perspective though, another ~10 hours in the lib.

Meadows with spud in the nice warm sunshine. Feeling miles better than last week but still a very slight bit of heavy-headedness, hard to describe, just a bit spacy. Very hard to tell how the legs feel as they'd be feeling weird after a random week off anyway. Back on the HRM life too, the freedom was nice while it lasted. Will be interesting to see if I've been accurate in my estimated zones. Fractionally higher today but also expected after a week off.

C • Spacy 4

All this not running business has been quite good from a work point of view, 10+ hours in kings today including finding a Mars Climate Orbiter 1999 sized mistake at T-4 days to deadline. Hope Graeme isn't reading this.

Legs a bit more alive on the cycle. Headache similar still, coming and going, but I think a test jog tomorrow could be on the cards.

Some improvement today I think, still a little headache but apart from that feeling exceptionally normal.

No real change again. Cycled to kings (walked to library all the other days since JK) which felt ok although legs still pretty stale. Feeling the headache in my ears a bit too, or at least they feel weirdly hot, L mainly.

No change, still the same little headache and legs more tired than I'd usually expect after walking up stairs. Fairly confident it's a bit of overtraining/under-recovery related fatigue, but don't feel "ill" in any way. Might write out a summary of the last few weeks later.

Summary of recent times, bit of a long read but useful for future reference:

Everything going ok through January, feeling fit, then did Lakeland Warrior on 4/5th Feb, ran well but also coming down with covid, so an enforced "down" week after that. In hindsight through, only one proper down week since the start of December was maybe not ideal and it's debateable whether covid counts as a down week, even though I was basically asymptomatic. Haven't been following any kind of training plan so basically as long as I wasn't ill or injured I did a "normal" week, generally whatever I felt like doing. Did a good job of keeping injuries at bay, but having always been injured every Spring in the past I've never quite had the full training+racing+uni work+socials combo for such an extended time before. Uni has been fairly consistently high workload and moderate stress but did avoid having to work any late nights.

Felt fine returning from covid, even the hard efforts, British Nights (19th Feb), BUCS (26/27th Feb), Pentlands race/long run (6th Mar). Then had Callander Crags CSC (Sat 12th Mar), followed by a big week of Tuesday meadows ints, FwtN and Sprint Scotland. Some alcohol both 12th and 19th Mar too. This was probably the first bit of 'overdoing it'. Then hard sessions:

22nd Mar: Crags hills, legs felt heavy. Chilled til the weekend.
26/27th Mar: British Champs, legs felt heavy again. A "one-off bad day" at this point.
30th Mar: Stubb field threshold, felt great. Happy days. A relaxing week at home and legs felt good all week.
2nd Apr: Shaftoe Crags middle. Legs decent but not amazing. Best ever ranking points :)
3rd Apr: Northern Champs. Legs not great, quite tired. Remember thinking afterwards something like "not sure how many more weekends I can keep burying myself".
5th Apr: Hard meadows ints, definitely not fully recovered from the weekend. Legs tired, but that was expected. End of the MPhys on 6th Apr too. Chilled til the weekend, but also SU ball on 7th Apr, where I remember having sit downs between dances as the legs felt so tired.
9th Apr: KF threshold, legs very heavy, cut it short. Only a week til the JK though so what are you going to do?
13th Apr: Not a hard session, but trying to revive the legs with a short effort and some strides. They still felt heavy though.
16th Apr: JK Middle. Thought the legs were feeling decent on the Friday, but nothing in them when pushing hard. Happy with the nav though so an ok result.
17th Apr: JK Long. Legs terrible, and brain quite bad too. Expectedly tired all afternoon/evening.
18th Apr: JK Relay. Legs average, bit stale but much more normal.
Then expectedly tired Tue/Wed but by Thu/Fri beginning to think it's not normal to be lasting this long...

In between those were lots of easy morning miles and a few longer runs. Hard to say no to morning miles, especially when Spud was going, and also because I was loving them and they kept me sane with uni.

Learning points:
1. Pencil in some down weeks and stick to them even if you feel "normal".
2. Don't race hard every weekend for so long. Fine to go orienteering (really helps with injury prevention for me) but don't bury yourself every time.
3. Include socials/alcohol in the training plan. Kind of already do this, and is mostly just common sense, but worth remembering. Probably less of an issue post-uni. Related point is factoring in work stress too.
4. Wear a heart rate monitor! Last one died March 2021 and never got round to getting a new one. Don't think I was really ever razzing easy runs though.

Any thoughts welcome... also realise this might look like an overreaction if I'm running happily in a few day's time.