Week in the Rearview Mirror: March 11 - March 17, 2012

This was a running recovery week, in an effort to see if my right instep and left calf are up to going long again. I purposefully avoided running at all after Sunday's fail until Saturday, when I did 4 miles. Things were a bit stiff, but it all held together reasonably well. It is still a bit too early to tell for sure if I'll be able to make the A2A Marathon start or not, since the right instep issue will definitely be a show stopper if it is not healed. I'm a lot less worried about any loss in fitness, just the injuries and if there is time for them to heal before the race.


Aside from that, the weather was kind to me and allowed me to still get some aerobic work in on the bicycle most days. Cycling doesn't put the pounding or strain on the instep or calf that running or even walking does, so it was nice to be able to ride and still get a good workout in. Cycling (at least the way I do it) isn't anywhere near as intense of a workout minute-for-minute as compared to running, but as a consequence of that I'm able to string multiple days together much easier, and do it for a bit longer at a time. I still think that buying that bike last May was one of the best investments I've made for my health.


My running plan between now and the marathon looks like this:

Day	Activity / Distance
Monday	Rest
Tuesday	4 miles
Wednesday	4 miles
Thursday	Rest / Cross-Train
Friday	6 miles
Saturday	4 miles
Sunday	6 miles
Monday	Rest / Cross-Train
Tuesday	4 miles
Wednesday	6 miles
Thursday	Rest
Friday	4 miles (Walking)
Saturday	Rest
Sunday	Marathon

If the calf and instep resolve by this time next week, and I'll continue with my plan to do the marathon. However, if they fail to progress and / or running is just not comfortable, I won't push myself into doing a marathon for which I'm not physically ready. I'll just keep my fingers crossed, and see what transpires.

Here is what last week looked like...

Day	Activity	Distance (in miles)
Sunday	Elliptical	0.80
	Running	2.56
	Walking	2.20
	Swimming	1.00
	Cycling	10.65
Monday	Cycling	16.92
Tuesday	Cycling	25.13
Wednesday	Cycling	25.51
Thursday	Walking	6.68
Friday	Cycling	25.28
Saturday	Walking	1.06
	Running	4.06
	Walking	1.10
	Cycling	10.70

These are my time and distance totals for the week:

Activity	Time Total	Distance Total (in miles)
Running	0:57:36	6.62
Walking	2:39:14	11.04
Elliptical	0:10:00	0.80
Swimming	0:45:49	1.00
Cycling	7:19:27	114.19
Overall Total	11:52:06	133.65

In cross-training, I've continued with the pushups and pullups on alternating days, and these are coming along nicely. I try to mix up the number of repetitions per set and the number of sets to keep from getting in a rut on these. The March planks challenge is coming along pretty well, as I'm beginning to find my groove. As long as I stick to sets of 1 min planks with 45 seconds recovery, I can do 10 fairly easily, and managed 15 yesterday (although this is still an "every other day" thing at best).

Spring break kind of muddled the schedule this week, so I went to Yoga on Wednesday and Saturday instead of my normal days. On Wednesday I tried a different instructor, and although we did some interesting things (one of which was beginners headstand done by placing the crown of the head and palms (elbows up) on the floor as the base, and balancing the knees on the elbows), but I think I like the other instructor better so I'll be sticking with him. His Saturday class was both challenging and interesting, and I look forward to this week's class.

Happy Running Everyone !!!