Training Through Stress, Time Constraints, and Freezing Cold Conditions

Date: 2/9/14

Current Weight: 184 lbs. 

Long Run This Past Weekend: 20 miles

Total Distance Logged Last Week: 40 miles 

All Suited up for a run on 2/9, Temp: -2

Typically January is the coldest month in MN but this year the cold has held on. Most of our weeks have had a good number of days where the highs have been in negative to single digits with below zero wind chills. Let's just say it keeps us winter runners tough....at least we like to think so. 

 

This past couple weeks has been stressful and busy. Business is good and 3CLICK Fitness is experiencing fast growth with the influx of leads spurred by new members joining our Affiliate clubs in the new year. Stress can be hard to deal with, but I can handle it when it comes with growth and success, and that has been the case in the past few weeks. I'm very excited to see our continued growth in 2014! Running has been a huge help in me keeping myself calm and keeping stress levels at bay.

Last weekend was a rough one for training. We had our weekend planned out to be hitting 2 long distance runs on back to back days, our first attempt at such a feat. The plan was a full marathon distance on Saturday, and 20 miles on Sunday. We set out on Saturday with halfway decent weather, but a little bit rushed due to a certain someone taking a nap and forgetting the start time of our run....hint: It wasn't me : )  The first half went smoothly, but by the time we had gotten to the turnaround, the wind had shifted to the SE and we were running right into it. The windchill was dropping quickly, and had hit about -20. This would have been manageable for us, but we were wet and sweaty from pushing through the first half. The windchill was so cold that it made our jackets and clothing brittle and very cold with our frozen sweat. The kicker came when Tony stopped at a porta-potty to grab some toilet paper to stuff in his pants to warm-up certain vital body parts. While I was waiting outside, I reached above my head to stretch and had a muscle spasm through my upper back that felt like I had just pulled my Lattisimus Dorsi (large wing shaped back muscle) right out of it's insertion point. After the spasm, which lasted about 20 seconds, I felt like I was going to throw up. Interestingly enough, I had just read an article a few days prior about new research that shows the increased trauma and tension in muscles in very cold weather. This spasm was a great example of that in action. We decided to call it at 16 miles, and we walked to a nearby coffee shop called One on One. One on One is a neat little place that has coffee, cafe style food, and doubles as a full service bike shop. Isabel, my wonderful girlfriend, came to our rescue shortly thereafter. Although we had logged a good 16 miles, I felt a bit defeated. On Sunday we logged another 10 chilly miles to bring our weekend total to 26. 

 

One good thing that came out of us having to cut our run short last week, is that we had time to formally discuss our training plan for our upcoming races. The Zumbo Midnight 50-mile is just 8 weeks away, and we want to make sure we have built up a very solid base to get out and crush it on April 4th. I'll paste the rough details of our program below:

 

Mid Week Goals (These apply to all weeks thru April):

2 hill workouts 3-8 miles ea

1 speed/tempo workout 3-8 miles

Weekend Runs:

2/8- 20 miles easy

2/15+16th - 2x20 miles

2/22- 20 miles easy

3/1+3/2 - 26.6 miles x 2

3/8 - 20 miles easy

3/16 - 35+ miles

3/22 - 10 miles

3/29 - 20 miles easy

4/4 - Zumbo Midnight 50-mile Trial Race

4/12 - 20 easy on trail

4/19 -Chippewa 50k Trail Race

4/26 - trail work

 

This weekend things went more smoothly. We met our scheduled goal of 20 miles on Saturday, and hit another 6 miles on Sunday, following a good resistance training session. We are feeling more confident with our endurance and pacing, and look forward to the more challenging training runs coming up. Next weekend we will be going for 2x20+ mile runs. We are also hoping that things start to warm-up soon so we have more favorable conditions for our long runs.