"Do you ever dance with The Devil in the pale moonlight?'... Yes. Daily, at the moment... and not just in the pale moonlight. Every goddam day when I lace up my running shoes, hop on a treadmill or spin bike, hit the (very) muddy trails, and even when I walk down a flight of stairs... It sucks.
Anyone following this will know I have a difficult relationship with training and injury. It's a constant balancing act of walking the tightrope of training progressively harder, and falling into the abyss of breakdown. It's shit, when all you want to do is train, but the same injury is always there... mocking you, whispering in your mind that you should ease up, and punishing you with pain and discomfort for daring to want to progress.
It soon wears thin.
I have no problem in working hard. It's something I am happy to do. But when every step you take feels like you've got the handbrake on, it plays with your motivation.
Last week was a heavy training week. This week is much lighter with a couple of total days off and much lower mileage. It's deliberately so. But even after a couple of very easy days, I ran yesterday on fresher legs and completed my latest MAF test (which is how far I can run with my heart rate under 134bpm - my Zone 2 - you can read all about the MAF test here).
The good news is it's a new personal best of 4.55km at 131 bpm average... I am happy with this. The Zone 2 aerobic training is bearing fruit. I have a long way to go still with 8 more weeks of base building, but this should develop nicely if I can stay consistent with the plan.
The not so good news is my ankle is still not quite right. My heel feels a little sore, and the ankle is still giving me a deep stab inside the front of the joint, with that feeling of needing to pop. It's starting to drive me mad. I've been very cautious, I've done the rehab work, I've gone easy when running.
Right now I am dancing with the devil. In order to keep the progression going, the next few weeks will be progressively more intense. I'm doing all I can to stretch, massage, heat, rest, shockwave and hot tub the ankle into submission and ideally a more comfortable pain free zone.
That said here is my January summary:
(you may need to zoom in)
This shows my TSS (Training Stress Score, and training intensity for the last 3 months). As you can see it's going up quickly, though expect it to start to level off for Feb and March)
This is my Fitness Ramp Rate. This means how quickly my fitness level (CTL - Chronic Training Load) is building steadily from a zero point when I started to track on Training Peaks. The idea is that you should target a ramp rate of 3-4 points on the CTL - 'Fitness' measure per week. This should avoid burning out and working too much in the deep red zone of your form (TSB - Training Stress Balance i.e. training stress versus recovery time) The Form score should not go lower than -25 to -30 (or there is a high risk of injury). And if you love a 'stat' there's this chart:
This summarizes where in my heart rate zones I am training, longest workout durations, percentate spent in type of training, etc. To put it simply, the right things are going up and I'm balancing the effort vs rest quite well. It's just the long term injury issue I'm having to manage as a key focal point. My 'Fitness' CTL is now higher than when I completed the Jurassic Coast 100km Ultra last year, and with 3 months to go until I take it on again (and get that sub 24hrs time I've been after) my engine should be more than capable of getting me there. I just want to finally be able to run the damn thing without a tendon or ankle issue for a change! If I can get to grips with this issue, then the 300km is definitely achievable. I just have to dance with the Devil very carefully in order to do it.
Thanks for reading...
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