Having gotten all the heavy lifting posts out of the way, I can finally write the kinds of weekly reports I had in mind when I started this blog.
This week: the Spring Run Off race in High Park, which I ran this morning.
I signed up for it a couple of months ago, before I’d actively started planning my summer season. At the time, I was thinking of it mostly as something to look forward to, since I didn’t have the Indoor World Championships to motivate me, as my clubmates did.
It started looking a bit different once I started planning. According to my periodization approach, which is focused on a goal 1500 race in July, it doesn’t make much sense to race hard so early in the season and risk injury. This is especially so since I’m still ramping up my volume (I’m up to 95km or so) and shouldn’t be pushing too hard.
Plus, a few little injuries have been nagging me for the last couple of weeks — something in my hip flexor, and something in my adductor longus (the two are definitely related). These muscles have to do with lifting legs — and the Spring Run Off is a very hilly course, with lots of extra leg-lifting.
I had a sense of this, but really hadn’t processed it until I previewed the course last weekend. It’s really hilly — like, much hillier than the cross-country courses I raced last fall. Particularly worrying for me were the two super-steep downhills, on which my slightly injured muscles made their displeasure very clear during the preview.
Continue reading “Spring Run Off 2019”