Week 2: Review

As mentioned in my previous post, the back injury took out most of my sessions last week. I did a couple of easy 4 milers with an extended warm-up, as well as one easy 6 miler on Sunday to test out everything. Thankfully, all of those runs went well and the back is feeling quite good at this point so I'm planning on working on rebuilding from this point on.

The one odd thing that I did run into was that my heart rates were substantially higher than expected (~+15bpm) for minimal effort runs like this. While some loss of fitness happens in these scenarios, the heart rate didn't line up with the perceived effort. My first run back, for instance, was done at minimal effort levels and my breathing wasn't even slightly laboured. My heart rate, however, averaged 167bpm - which would normally take a full blown tempo effort to achieve.

I'm guessing that this is likely some kind of side effect of the muscle relaxants that were lingering in my bloodstream, but I'm still not sure. I did find some mentions of them lowering heart rate while you are on the medication, but nothing about it elevating them after going off. Fortunately, I did a 6 miler today (Tuesday) and my heart rate appears to have gone back to normal (10bpm slower than Sunday, despite a pace that was 15 seconds per kilometer faster) so whatever it was appears to have worked it's way out of my system. It's still higher than normal, but well within what can be explained by lost fitness.

Other than that there isn't a whole lot to report. I skipped my swimming sessions to avoid hurting things again, and missed my cycling sessions due to a blown tube. I'm back into the former at this point, but still have to get the bike back to the shop to get back into the latter.

Week 2 Totals:
Running: 22.5km (14.0mi)
Walking: 3.8km (2.4mi)
Cycling: 0.0km (0.0mi)
Swimming: 0.0km (0.0mi)
Total: 26.3km (16.3mi)

Year to Date (as of Jan 17th):
Running: 71.2km (44.2mi)
Walking: 4.9km (3.0mi)
Cycling: 0.0km (0.0mi)
Swimming: 8.6km (5.3mi)
Total: 84.7km (52.6mi)

I don't want to plan things too rigidly for this coming week as I will have to be careful not to overdo it. As mentioned above, I did do a slightly faster 6 miler this afternoon and that went well - so I'll be working up from there. With respect to the plan, I'm likely best switching over to Pfitzinger's 12-week program so that I can carefully build myself back up rather than trying to force myself back into an aggressive routine right away. I'm going to have to look over the race calendar, however, to make sure that it's suitable for what I'd like to do this season.

This Week (Tentative):
Mon 3.25K Swim
Tue 6mi Recovery
Wed 6mi Recovery
Thurs 6mi Recovery
Fri 3.25K Swim
Sat 4mi Recovery
Sun 8mi Recovery

In addition, I'm going to start working on re-introducting some core strength workouts into my routine again to avoid this problem in the future. I'm not a big fan of them, but it's obvious that the swim-bike-run exercises alone aren't doing a good enough job of building those muscles, so I will have to take special care.

I will also have to find the time to bring the bike in to get the tube changed as well as get those aerobars and computer mounted and fitted for me. As boring as indoor training is, hopefully having some new toys to play around with in the process will help to make it more interesting ;)