Recovery

Ahhh! Recovery day. I needed it. Yesterday was 4 miles at an 11:00 pace. It was nice not pushing things. I went out of the NAC, took the south route, and except for a couple of hills, had a *slow* *slow* run. But I'm not sure that I could have managed much else. I ended the day in the weight room at the NAC for stretching and core workout.

Ever since Tuesday, my legs have felt as fatigued as they have in quite a while. I am sure the combination of increased miles and increased pace is doing it. Yesterday, I had shin pain and a general weak feeling in my quads and ankles during my run. So, I need to watch myself the rest of this week. Last thing I want at this point is an injury. I am sitting here at 20 miles so far. I was thinking about 12 LSD and then 5 tempo over the weekend, but I may scale that back. A lot depends on how I feel tomorrow. Right now, my shins are still sore. I am hoping today's SRD will help that.

Wednesday Track Time

Yesterday was Wednesday, so that means time on the track to speed myself up. My workout was a 2 mile warm up, 12X200 intervals (with 200 rest in between) and a one mile warm down. Six miles total. Puts me at 16 so far for the week.

For the first time in a while I considered cutting it short. To put it bluntly - my legs are tired. They were at the start of the run yesterday. They are more so now as I sit here the morning having my coffee. I'm glad that today is a four mile easy run. I am going to slow way down and treat this as a recovery run today. As I read (and learn) more about the importance of various types of training, it occurred to me that for the past couple of weeks, I have been ignoring recovery. Hmm, I wonder if that has something to so with my fatigue....

I've also looked at my upcoming running schedule. Right now, everything hinges around the OC Marathon on May 9th. Given an 18 week training cycle, I will start my marathon training sometime in late January/early February. That means I have from the end of next week until then without anything specific to train for. I'll start a search for a new training plan this weekend.

I also spent some time planning out my upcoming races:

• Harbor Heritage Run 5K (10/11): This was my first race a year ago when I got this all started. I remember it being a rainy morning. I also remember sucking gas less than a mile into the race...
• Dana Point Turkey Trot 10K (11/27): Huge race. Did I say huge? Yeah huge. Too many people, but a great way to start Thanksgiving morning.
• Xterra Crystal Cove Trail Run 15K (12/19): Maybe. I signed up for this one last year but had a better offer (weekend in Mexico).
• Southern California Half Marathon (1/10/09): I think this would be a good wrap up going into marathon training.

The best part of this schedule? The farthest I would have to drive is 20 miles to get to Dana Point.