I started this week with 3 easy days. Monday and Tuesday consisted of very easy Open Water swims, while Wednesday had a very easy, short run plus a swim. After one easy day I definitely noticed an improvement with my knee. There was no pain walking or even going up and down stairs, although I still could not do a single leg squat without pain. However the second rest day did not see any improvement and by the third day I was starting to stiffen up and experience general aches and pains throughout the body.
As mentioned in earlier blog posts, I tend to experience aches and pains once my run gets to around 10km. When I started to think more about this, I remembered I used to get the same problem when I first started trying to do long, slow runs (years before I suffered my current knee injury). The problem seemed to be that when I ran accordingly to heart rate, my pace was uncomfortably slow. This meant that I was not running with a natural rhythm and it was the bad running form at this slow pace that was causing the muscle soreness. Back then I got around this problem by ignoring heart rate on my long runs and simply running at a relaxed, but more natural pace. As a result, the endurance benefit of improving fat burning efficiency would be lessened, but my legs would be getting the conditioning they needed to survive long runs. With this knowledge I decided to only run to heart rate for runs of 10km or less. This is actually backwards to how most people would advise training, but sometimes you have to adapt to particular situations.
The short 4km run Wednesday afternoon (at a very low HR) felt great and gave me confidence to do a long run on Thursday. Right from the start of the long run, I felt a slight ache on the outside of my left hip. I'm not sure if this is the top of my ITB, my hamstring or something else. The rest of my body felt good so I had no hesitation in completing the planned distance of 16km. Running at a relaxed, natural pace saw my speed sit around 5m10s per km (about 15 secs faster) and my heart rate sat between 140 to 150bpm (around 10 beats higher). I did not feel like the pace was too fast and when I finished the run after 90 minutes I did not feel tired.
There was no pain from the knee at any time during the run, but it has been aching a bit since, as has the hip that was sore on the run. The 2nd and 3rd toe on my left foot is also quite sore - which may mean I need a larger size shoe for my long runs.
Last night I went to John Van Wisse's swim squad at the King Club in Sandringham. These are great sessions and also a good way to gauge how well my swimming is going. It was an unusually small turnout which meant the group only took up 3 lanes (it often takes up 6 lanes, sometimes over 8 people to a lane). I began in the middle lane, but I was swimming so well John moved my up to the fastest lane. He was very impressed and said it was the best he had ever seen me swim. Very encouraging news, however my shoulders are a little sore today. The session was 3km long, plus I also did an extra 400m before the session started.
I'm probably going to have an easy day today to let the body recover from yesterdays long run and swim. How I feel tomorrow morning will determine how hard I train this weekend. With this week scheduled as a recovery week, I feel no pressure to cram in training.
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