Working with a new coach and (hopefully) a new mindset had me excited for the beginning of my new training plan. Coach Sean and I had a couple of conversations prior to initiating the plan in order to get ourselves on the same page.
When Sean sent me ove the first couple of weeks of my training plan I was surprised to see that he had placed an emphasis on rediscovering my speed. I had anticipated the initial progressions of my training being an increase in distance instead of speed, but he was flipping this on its head.
During the first several speed sessions, I was definitely running at a slower pace than in previous years. There were some nervous moments, not knowing how my knee would respond to the increased pressure that I was putting on it.
To say that I was painfree would once again be a lie. Oftentimes throughout my training, my knee would get sore (somewhere between 5-10km into a run). The pain, however, was in the front of my knee (where I received the cortisone injection) not where the stress fracture was. The pain generally did not go above 4/10 and would resolve almost immediately after I stopped running, both of which are often indicators that you can continue.
To start the plan, I had worked my way back up to running 5 days per week and through the first few weeks of the plan I was running about 70-75km per week with a new emphasis on speed. The first week of March I was done teaching at McMaster University which meant that I was ready to return to my schedule of running 6 days per week and to further build up my mileage. Overall, I was feeling pretty good so I started to consider adding a 10km race prior to the half marathon that I registered for in May.
By mid-March I was back to running 6 days per week. My second week of 6 days per week reminded me of what it was like to be tired! I hit 90km of mileage that week, and that coupled with 3 harder sessions (one including steady state running at a fast pace with increasing incline on the treadmill) and one night of hockey, left me needing some recovery by the end of the week. My vow to myself this season was that I was going to listen to my body and be honest with how I am feeling, so at my gym session the Friday of this week I did just that and we went easy.
One sidenote worth mentioning; after almost 6yrs off of hockey (my original passion), a friend talked me into coming out with him and playing a game of “shinny” in December. Not thinking that I missed hockey all that much, I thought it would be a “one and done” situation. However, getting out on the ice made me realize how much I missed it. I started playing hockey again once per week on Thursday nights and building this into my training plan. Hockey would only last into the first week of April, so it wouldn’t disrupt the hardest part of my training. It is important to not to stop doing things that you love, and the variety can be helpful (though it is important to realize that this also taxes your body so you have to adjust your training accordingly).
My knee was still not perfect as I continued to ramp up my training, but still none of the pain was lasting. My confidence in my knee continued to grow to the point where I was ready to start signing up for some other races. The first race that I would sign up for (as a warm up for the Toronto Half Marathon) was the Around the Bay 10k in Hamilton. Last year, a group of us ran the 30k at Around the Bay (in terrible weather), so I thought it would be fun to participate in it once again. I knew that I was not ready for a 30k at this point in my training and the 15k was sold out, so myself and Michael from my running group decided that the 10k was a great option.
I also started to lay out my plan for post-half marathon training and the build towards my ultra marathon in August. South Simcoe Physiotherapy is a sponsor and provides the first aid at Rainbow Run at Earl Rowe Park in Alliston each year, so I like to participate in this local event. This year, my plan was to run the 24k version of this race prior to then running the first aid tent. A couple of weeks later I set my sites on the Utopia Backyard Ultra which is an event that my new running coach is involved in organizing. The event that I am planning on participating in involves one 6.7km loop every hour for 6hrs. My thinking is that this will be a great training run for the ultra that I run in August and given that it is just prior to a family vacation (where my training will not likely be ideal), the timing is optimal as well. In August I will be running a 50k Ultramarathon in Tremblant run by an organization called the UTMB (same organization the ran the Eiger Ultra in Switzerland). This will be the true test, not only of my knee, but of my conditioning and mental fortitude as I anticipate that with the 2500m of vertical gain, this race will take me somewhere between 6-8hrs to complete. Then, to finish off my season, I plan to run in the Athens Marathon in Greece while also taking in some of the sights and history of what I am told is a beautiful country. The Athens Marathon will be a marathon that I do not attempt to run “all out” as the window between this race and my ultramarathon is the same as the 2 big races from last year that resulted in my stress fracture. Lesson learned (I hope!).
