This week has not been a success. I'm injured, my knee is a definite issue, and I have done a grand total of 14.9 miles this week, all of them steadily. This is against a planned 45 which should have included an interval session and a half marathon I pulled out of. Between the ankle and subsequent knee issue it's now been at least three weeks since I have done a tempo run, hill reps or a decent interval session. There is simply no denying that my plans have gone out the window and in all likelihood I'll be nursing a niggle through the rest of the training. The sort of time I was starting to think about attempting to run is not going to be possible. I also cannot deny I'm feeling extremely down about the whole situation and it's been a horrid week. Just as everything should be coming together instead, much like my right leg, it's somewhat falling to bits.
I've done a fair bit of cross training this week. I've attempted to do interval, threshold and endurance training sessions based on heart rate, predominantly on the bike in the gym. The problem with this is that I simply cannot get the target heart rates I want doing anything other than running because I'm not strong enough to do it on the bike no matter how hard I try. Saturday's plan was for a 40 minute threshold session, which means heart rate 154-160. Despite a huge amount of huffing and puffing and depositing half my own body weight in sweat in a four foot radius around the bike I managed to get my heart rate into the target zone for exactly 4 minutes and 15 seconds.
Today's endurance session was a little more successful. This was meant to be my last cut back week with the half marathon at the end, so mileage was only meant to be low for the "long" run this week. I ended up doing 90 minutes of cardio in the gym with a target heart rate of 140. I didn't come close to managing this, the first 60 minutes on the bike were well off, but when I switched to the cross trainer at the point my backside could take sitting on the seat no longer I did find I could maintain at or about 140 for half an hour fairly easily. I'm sure I'll be using the cross trainer again over the next few weeks. If nothing else it's easier on my ass.
So, my original plan has basically been chucked out the window and I'm now on to six weeks of damage limitation and playing it by ear. Today was the first completely pain free day I've had. I resisted the urge to chuck my trainers on and go out and do as much mileage as I could. I jogged to and from the gym, again, pain free and no pain afterwards. I've done all my physio exercises and massage with an almost religious level of zeal. I may shortly look more like a body builder than a runner with the amount of time I've spent forcing a massage stick over my battered legs; my biceps may well be the muscles that have had the best work out this week.
I have a plan that I'm hoping will work for the next week, but until I get out tomorrow and see how the run goes I have no idea whether it's going to work and even in a best case scenario I'm substituting some cross training for the runs I should be doing. Next week would probably have been my highest mileage week of the whole of marathon training, or close to it, and instead I'm looking at even in an ideal world where the leg behaves perfectly around 30-35 miles. I absolutely can't inflame the bloody knee again crashing back into too much running. If I'm lucky I'll manage an interval or tempo run, but I'm prioritising some time running at my (new and reduced) target marathon pace and the long run next weekend.
Fingers crossed.
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