Week 4: Jetlagged and Deconditioned
Week 4: July 22 - July 28, 2019
Since the previous training week involved so little running due to my travels and the heat wave, I was determined to get back on track in my workouts. Week 4 was going to be a doozy:
Monday: 4 miles easy
Tuesday: 1.5 mile warmup, 8 x 600m @ 10k pace w/ 400m jog, 1.5 mile cooldown
Wednesday: Rest/Crosstrain
Thursday: 6 mile easy
Friday: 1.5 mile warmup, 4 x 1 mile @ goal marathon pace w/ 400m jog, 1.5 mile cooldown
Saturday: 6 mile easy
Sunday: 8 mile long
It was hot out on that Monday, but not nearly as hot as the 100+ degree heat wave I skipped when I was in Iceland. Thankfully, the program only asked for an easy 4 mile run, so I did just that. My pace was leisurely, but running to the East River after nearly a week in completely fresh and less-polluted air made breathing in the smells of city summer garbage quite unbearable. I wanted to vomit with every nasal inhalation, so I had to resort to a few breaths through my mouth. Unfortunately, that’s part of the olfactory system so I now tasted garbage as well.
My jetlag was delayed, so I only started feeling the effects of the time difference on Tuesday, making me exhausted. I let that be more of a rest day and worked on mobility and planned to keep going later in the week.
I made Wednesday the speed workout on the track. I played lacrosse in high school and was never on the track team, so sometimes the concept of using meters to measure distance is hard to picture. I learned that 400 meters is one lap around a standard track, but the program called for 600 meters for 8 rounds, so I knew that as my brain gets foggy from running in circles I would get confused over 1.5 laps each time. I decided to make it 800 meters, and I used my signature hairbands that I keep on my wrists to help me count how many rounds I completed. Again, my paces were too fast during the work portion and slow during the resting meters, but I’m still working on holding back. I have two speeds (fast and faster); I don’t know how to purposely go slow unless I can’t catch my breath.
Thursday should have been a calm jog, but I was still so tired from jet lag. I worked on my neck physical therapy and that’s about it (an injury I was working through thanks to all the handstands I’ve been doing while also stressed out).
I was back on the track on Friday between clients. I liked this particular workout because it was easier to keep track of the number of laps and also stayed in line with my natural running pace. I’m an endurance athlete; sprinting or putting maximal effort all at once and then resting is not my thing. I can keep a medium-effort pace for a longer time much more comfortably than the stop-and-go method. My kettlebell instructor for my RKC certification said that he could tell I’m an endurance athlete based on my snatch test’s even cadence. He said the sprinters blasted out a few reps, took breaks, and got back to it. I did my snatches to the beat of “Baby Got Back” and didn’t need a break until the last 20 reps. Anyway, I got all the laps required on the track, but no time for an official cooldown since I had to be back for a client, but I was glad I got the workout in when I did.
It was finally the weekend and it was hard to get out of bed early for a 6 mile run. I did anyway because if I waited any longer to get out there it would feel too hot out. I technically went at my marathon pace for my 4-hour-to-finish goal, but the run luckily felt like minimal effort. The only problem I encountered was a cute medium-sized dog got loose while its owner picked up its droppings and approached me with aggression, jumping on me thinking he’s a large attack dog. The dog didn’t bite me or knock me down because of its size, but the surprise attack scared me since I was in my running zone and already mentally in a weird place. Ironically I was wearing paw print earrings at the time because I like dogs. I wanted to yell at the owner but shook it off since I had a mile to go to get home and didn’t want to lose my momentum.
Sunday morning came along and I felt super motivated. I wanted a great run early on so that I could enjoy an afternoon lounging poolside in the city. I wanted to test out the steepness of the aqueduct between Hoboken and Jersey City Heights, so I ran up it steadily, looped around Hoboken, and then decided to do it a second time to get some more mileage in. As long as I stuck with a good pace and kept my breathing calm, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and the reward of getting to the top was the abundance of shade provided by all the trees and the fact that there was a journey down the hill to get back home. I would have gone straight back to my apartment, but I wanted to treat myself to my favorite latte at Empire Coffee Company, only to run up to the door, struggle to open it, and realize that they wouldn’t be open for another half hour since it was still pretty early in the morning. I ran another mile home to shower before I walked over (slowly) for my treat. I probably could have kept running another 20 minutes, but my feet were starting to blister and I already got 10 miles in the books. I think I deserve to rest!
Despite my jetlag and exhaustion, I’d call Week 4 successful. I completed 5 of the 6 workouts, and although some were out of order, they still got done! I even went a little farther on the long run to make up for a little bit of the volume lost. I’m hoping the remaining weeks provide me with great motivation and results.
In the afternoons and evenings after my long runs, I’d sit on a bench and read some thrillers. This little (BIG) guy was staring over my shoulder this weekend on both Saturday and Sunday. I knew it was him/her because of the broken wing. Just keep flying! 🐉