My post-marathon recovery got off to a bumpy start, I caught a cold virus in Chicago, probably riding all those crowded trains or at the marathon expo on Saturday. Symptoms kicked in Tuesday, but by Friday I was feeling mostly normal, so this was a short-live and mild cold.
I took off five days from running, and started back up on Saturday the 14th with an easy jog in the woods and creek trails along Bear Creek. Since then I have run 6 days a week and added a little bit of cycling and core work. With weeks of 36, 47, and 52 I’m starting to get my legs under me again, but not without a setback last weekend.
Maybe against better judgment in hindsight, I signed up for a short 4K cross country race in Boulder. 4K is definitely too short for XC, but then again it once I got out there it felt too long. After a mild couple of weeks the weather turned cooler on Friday, with temps only in the 30s, and Saturday’s forecast was for colder yet, with about 30 degrees aby race time. However, when I arrived to the park in North Boulder it was only 24 and breezy with snow flurries.
The loop was really small, 1K, and 2X 1.5K (which was just the main loop with a couple fingers on the infield), but it was hilly and slow. No one ran particularly fast, I ran really slow. Plan was for a start at 10K effort 6:30s and then working down to 5K effort with a strong finish over the last km. I figured final time be in the 15s somewhere and imagined it would all feel easy.
That didn’t happen and it wasn’t.
My first km was about where I had expected 4:10 or so, but I felt slow off the bat, and within a couple hundred meters I was struggling with my breathing. The first mile was only 6:48 (that’s just a few seconds under sea-level marathon pace) but I decided to ease my effort from that. For the rest of the way I only averaged 6:50s to finish as the last male and near the bottom overall (17th of 24 I think).
Looking at my heart rate data, it spiked to 159 (96% of maximum) in the first mile, and that is not sustainable for more than a few minutes. So backing down was the only option. It held at low 150s for the final 10 minutes of this cardiovascular debacle.
What happened? I think a combination of not being fully recovered/prepared (no speed work in five weeks), and the shock from the cold weather. All my other runs until Friday’s had been in the 40s or warmer, so 24 was a shock. No big deal.
This week I had a couple pretty good workouts, a set of hill/tempo repetitions on Wednesday, and a set of 10X 2 minute reps on rolling/hills on Friday. On these my heart rate held at moderate levels 140s for the tempo work on Wednesday 140s-low 150s for the shorter reps on Friday. These workouts indicated low-mid 39 minutes for an altitude 10K, low or sub 38 at sea level. I’d be happy with that this month.
Seems like Saturday was just an anomaly.
I do have another cross country race next weekend (five weeks after the marathon, and that’s still kind of soon), and a 10K road race on Thanksgiving. I’m not too concerned about the 5K, it’s more of a tune-up. The 10K, I’d like to run faster than my 12K split of 38:00, from September.
In the meantime I’ll keep upping the miles, into the 60s for a couple weeks. I’ll cut back for the turkey trot, and then winter base really kicks off, hopefully with some cross country skiing every week. Ten hour weeks, with two workouts on average, will be the standard from December into spring.
rrunnin234 