Monday, November 03, 2008

Adapting to elevated mileage - 15 weeks out to Austin

I suppose I should sign up for the Austin Marathon, since I keep saying that I am aiming to run a sub-3 there. I guess I should get a jump on Boston, too.

Last week, I said I was planning to run 58 miles. I hit 95% of those miles and ended the week with 55. I needed to cut short the recovery run on early Friday morning due to (a) limited time -- we had an early flight to Boston for a family weekend trip, and (b) fatigue in the legs. It was hard to turn around and run Friday AM after hitting 40 miles in 4 days on Mon-Thurs.

Although we flew into Boston, we spent our weekend visiting my sis-in-law in North Kingstown, RI introducing our new daughters to one another. During my weekend trip on Saturday, I ran a solid 15 miles during a beautiful autumn morning in the towns N. Kingstown and Wickford, RI.

My run in RI included beautiful views of the Jamestown Bridge and Narrangansett Bay. Running through historic towns in the Northeast along the water is such a different experience than running in the flat farmlands of Plainfield, IL.

My program calls for 62 miles this week. Tonight, I knocked out 9 miles as expected. I am monitoring my legs and some modest fatigue closely. I am feeling some wear on the legs that I do not usually feel. There is 14 in the plan for tomorrow after work. I want to be smart and listen to my body and not over-do it.

I suppose it's to be expected since I am in a significant mileage build phase. I usually peak in 55 after several weeks of build-up when I am running the Pfitz 55mpw program. I want to make sure I am not setting myself up for injury as a result of my ramp-up to the higher-mileage Pfitzinger plan.

1 comment:

Bert said...

My experience from 30+ years of running (which includes one bout with serious overtraining issues including compromised parasympathetic nervous system) is that it is not the mileage per se that is the cause of injuries and/or overtraining, but a lack of variety. It is the 'all hard running all the time' mindset that is the problem.