Sunday, June 27, 2010

Welcome back, intervals

My running seems to be getting nowhere.

Last week, we ran a marathon that was supposed to be a training run and I ended up dropping out. I ran the first half in 1:26, which turned out to be too fast. I think the problem was that I had expected to easily finish in the top 3, based on last year's times. It was won in 3:02 last year, but this year the winner came in in 2:44. Not sure what happened there.

Anyway, I got really nauseated at 30K and couldn't run anymore. The legs still felt ok, but things just weren't passing through my stomach anymore and I decided to quit. I used the same nasty gels that I used at the Copenhagen marathon, where I got stomach cramps, so I have promised myself never to use them again.

Overall, the picture is clear, bad gels or not. This spring, I have run a 50K and three marathons about a month apart. I tapered for each one and they all left me too sore to run for a week afterwards. The first race, Hells Hills, went really well. The next, Copenhagen Ultra (I just ran the marathon), also went really well (2:50 without really trying). Then the Copenhagen Marathon didn't go well (2:49 while really trying) and this last one just plain sucked. The overall picture is that I need to train more and race less.

The good news is that I have a decent base and I'm 95% injury free. My right ankle still bugs me a little but it feels like it will abate on its own. So, starting tonight, I'm doing two interval sessions a week.

I don't have any big races coming up. Sometimes, it's nice just to be able to concentrate on training.

1 comment:

SteveQ said...

Looks like you were trying to "ride the wave" of a marathon peak a little too long. You can't really taper for each race if they're a month apart, you just recover enough that you feel you could race again, but each effort takes a little more out of you (this coming from Mr. 500 miles of races in 9 weeks).