Anna:
Acceptance is a pivotal part of allowing your body to recover. Accepting that some days you feel awful and going for a run just isn’t in the cards. Accepting that your work schedule is not ideal this week and you have 3 days to get all your hard workouts in. Once you get it in your mind that the training plan is a plan, not something written in blood I think things get a little less stressful, at least they did for me.
Week 6’s workouts: 3 easy miles, 3-4 easy miles, 8-9 miles with 6 x 8000’s @ 3:40 pace ( 3:30 for Jess), 0-3 easy miles, 4 miles hills, and 10 miles with 2 miles at tempo.
Tuesday: I worked late last night so I wasn’t sure how my run was going to go. I was feeling pretty good once I got outside and moving and ended up doing a 6 mile run at a 9-minute pace. I am aiming for a 9-minute pace for the marathon and so far it hasn’t felt too bad, I actually find myself running too fast on most runs and will have to consciously slow myself down (thank god for my Garmin watch). Post-run I rolled out my legs and did a 20-minute yoga workout that was focused on hip-opening stretches.
Wednesday: Track workout Day!!! : THE SUN WAS OUT! Recovery isn’t just resting, fueling, and stretching for me. Recovery is remembering why you love being outside with the sun on your face, recovery is killing 6 800’s with your friend and feeling good when you finish, recovery is reigniting a fire that the gloomy winter months have been trying to dim. My 800’s needed to be run in 3:40, for someone who hasn’t run on a track in years that’s fast! I was able to keep pace for each of my 800’s and didn’t feel completely dead at the end of them. We started and ended our workout with an easy 2 miles filled with lots of chatting, venting, and laughing! After our workout, we went back to Jess’s house and she made me a delicious meal filled with all the goodies needed to build back up our muscles (Jess breaks down the meal below).
When I got home I rolled out my legs with a foam roller and did a little more stretching. Once my muscles cool down is when I feel my tightness so I try and do a stretching session immediately post-run and one before bed or a few hours after my workout. One of my favorite recovery tools is my foam roller. Foam rolling is a love-hate relationship, it hurts so good is how I describe it to people. The pain gets better over time as you loosen up! Fascia and underlying muscle tissue within the body can become stuck together. This is normally what somebody will call a knot. These adhesions “knots” result in restricted muscle movement. With this comes a reduction in flexibility, and muscle efficiency, and if untreated can lead to pain and injury. Long and short of all of that if you stick with it I promise it gets better. This is the foam roller I used from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/TriggerPoint-Roller-Instructional-Original-13-inch/dp/B0040EGNIU/ref=sr_1_6?crid=14C1REN8SU193&keywords=runners%2Bfoam%2Broller&qid=1644531524&sprefix=runners%2Bfoam%2Bro%2Caps%2C626&sr=8-6&th=1)
One thing I do recommend when purchasing a foam roller is to get one with a plastic core. They are a little bit more expensive but they last forever because they won’t bend from the weight of your body over time like the ones that are all foam do.
Thursday: This week I have 3 days to get the big workouts in so, today was my long run. It’s not recommended to do your hard workouts back to back because you don’t give your muscles enough time to recover. I made a deal with myself last night that If I woke up feeling fatigued I wouldn’t do my long run today. To my surprise, I woke up feeling great! Today was a 10-mile run with two miles at tempo pace. I was able to run my first 5 at 9-minute mile pace, my 2 tempo miles at 8-minute miles pace, and my last 3 at 9-minute mile pace. Today’s run is a testament to following a running plan and fueling my body properly. Post-run I did a 10-minute lower body yoga flow and made some avocado toast seasoned with Trader Joe’s everything but the bagel seasoning!
In preparation for my next three days of work, the rest of my day was spent meal prepping.
My weekend meal prep includes:
- Coffee pot prepped and timer set (this is probably the most important!)
- 3 mason jars of overnight oats: raisins, oats, cinnamon, oat milk, & water to right above the dry ingredients.
- If you don’t have the cookbook “THUG Kitchen, Eat like you give a f*ck” you need to get it! I made their mango curry over whole-grain rice…. wow is it good. I separated this up into 3 containers and will eat this every day for lunch.
- This week rounding snacks will be grapes and sumo oranges.
As I sit here and write this week’s entry I am wearing my RE Athlete Air Pro compression boots. If you have never tried compression boots I highly recommend them. The benefits of compression boots are improved circulation, they boost lymphatic fluid movement (which reduces swollen feet/legs), removal of lactic acid which reduces muscle fatigue, boost oxygen distribution, and to be totally honest they feel AMAZING. There are so many recovery methods available to athletes today. The ones I mentioned are just a few that I consistently use and find very helpful.
Jess:
Week 6’s Workouts: 0-3 easy miles, 4-6 easy miles, 8-9 mile workout, 0-3 easy miles, 5-6 miles of hills, 10 mile tempo run
This week was a good one, I think because I got a day with Anna!! I also have some other recovery secrets I’ll share!
Monday: rest day (except I was on my feet for 13 hours…). Needed this day after this weekend of hills!!
Tuesday: Opened up my hips with a pre-run warm-up on Peloton (still tight from the weekend) and slip-slided through my neighborhood during my easy hill miles (I did 4). The sidewalk was frozen solid and I was lucky I didn’t fall. THE WINTER KILLS ME. Strength/stretch came after. Then I had a wonderful afternoon at a recovery studio in Philly called “Konect.” I have gone here in prior training cycles. It is amazing. They provide compression boot sessions if you don’t own them (the ones Anna described), IV hydration, massage, cryotherapy, sauna, etc. I typically do cryo→sauna back to back. I did a 3 minute cryotherapy session followed by a 25-minute sauna and WOW. Cryotherapy (cold tanks) are incredible. So are ice baths. Once I’m getting close to 40 miles/wk, I have to do some sort of cryo or ice bathing. When you are pounding your legs against the ground, you are causing some trauma to your muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Ice and cold will help it heal quicker (Just like when you ice a swollen muscle/joint but it’s your whole body!). Then you follow it up with a 25 minute sauna and wow. You just take this wonderful exhale and your entire body just relaxes. I got Anna to sign up and I’m so excited for her to try it!
Wednesday: THE BEST DAY!!! Anna and I got a killer workout in. The sun was out and we felt so comfortable easing into our paces for those 6x800s. I am getting so excited for track workouts now which is weird. Anna is so motivating and having a friend with you just makes it so much easier. She came back to my house and I treated her with an awesome breakfast bowl I tried out a few days before. I got it from the Running on Veggies cookbook which I highly recommend: https://www.runonveg.com/book/
We hung out and brainstormed for a bit. It’s so hard being a nurse practitioner and having conflicting schedules but it makes the time we have to run/plan all the better.
Thursday: I nailed this post-work treadmill run. I don’t even know how. I had literally one of the worst days I have had in a while at work. Overwhelmed with patients, I walked into 3 different shitshows, and at the end of the day, my admission looked terrible. I think I just took all of that negative energy and repurposed it. Got on the tread and finished 4 miles after work which is UNHEARD OF for me. Training with a partner is truly working!!
Friday: Rest day – I wasn’t feeling it. I was ready to get home, eat and get to sleep. I was super nervous about my tempo run the next day so I leaned into my headspace and took a breather.
Saturday: 10 mile tempo – 5 mile warm up, 2 miles at ~ 7:00 pace, 3 miles warm down.
I was determined today. I have not been running on flats and the weather for my long runs have just sucked. I took this one to a flat river run and wow the weather was perfect. My “easy” was one minute faster than I usually run and my heart rate still stayed down. I got to the 2 mile tempo and I just took off. 6:50 and 7:05 for the two miles!!!!! I am getting so motivated and excited for the races coming up. I thought I could get away without fuel but that was the wrong thing to do. I felt a bit woozy at the end so slammed a bar I brought with me. Standardly, if I am running any more than 45 minutes I bring fuel. Either way, I felt like a total badass.
My recovery after this was spending the entire evening with my immediate family. I haven’t seen them since the holidays and we had the best weekend. We had so much food and just laughed all day. It was the best emotional recovery. I turned my brain off and just hugged my nieces until they were blue in the face 🙂
Sunday: 50 degrees yesterday and 3 inches of snow today. This weather shows no mercy. Training in the winter is unreal. I feel prepared for any weather that comes my way in April. I did a backwoods run in my hometown in New Jersey. I’ve talked about Strava before but I’ll bring it up again. It is so useful if you are traveling and can’t find a running route. If you go to the “Maps” and then “Routes” option you can put in your location and find running routes people have saved. I did some nice easy 5 miles in the light snow and it was wonderful. Awesome week!
