Rest is a Wonderful Thing

Did a tempo-ish hour on the treadmill -- including a set of 4 quarter mile "sprints" at about a 6:15 pace -- and I still feel pretty fresh.  No difficulties with the ankles, heels or any foot bones, tendons, ligaments...whatevers.  The week's not over yet, but I think this early cut-back in running mileage has been a good thing.  I was pretty proud of the fact that I had moved up into the upper 40s in weekly mileage and was knocking on the 20-mile long run door a couple of weeks earlier than scheduled.  But I think my body sent me a little signal that maybe I was ramping up too quickly and tempting injury.

It's been nice to reacquaint myself with other old cardio routines, like rowing and spinning.  There may come a point where my fitness level might be good enough to entertain two-a-day workouts, with regular crosstraining complementing running rather than simply filling in on no-run days.  One possible week could be:

Monday: Swim in the morning + Row & Circuit train at noon (no run day)
Tuesday: Run in the morning + Spin Class at noon
Wednesday: Swim in the morning + Run & Circuit train at noon
Thursday: Run in the morning + Spin Class at noon
Friday: Swim in the morning + Run & Circuit train at noon
Weekend: Long run or race

That'd be 6 sessions running, 3 sessions swimming, 3 strength-training circuit sessions, 2 sessions spinning, 1 session rowing each week.  Hmmm.  That's a pretty vigorous and aggressive schedule.  I'd probably have to be fueling/eating to about 2800 balanced calories per day to support that.  Maybe someday, if I turn a serious eye towards triathlons.  For now, I'll just focus on improving my running, cross training when I can.

I'm leaning toward running the Lusardi loop on Saturday, a day before the XTerra trail run.  Since I'm not going to run it officially, I'd still like to get the mileage in and put in a time result to see how I might have stacked up with the field when Sunday's results are posted.

That'll close out the first six-week segment of my marathon plan and I'll enter into stage II.  The mileage will increase again and I'm going to put more emphasis on speed and hill intervals during the midweek as I break the 20-mile boundary on the weekend long runs.  That's where the real test of the ankles will be. Until then, I'm just trying to be careful and giving things a chance to rest, heal and get stronger.

(Might look into a new pair of shoes this week.  Depends on cashflow.)