Sticking to the Plan … NOT!

At the end of August, I created a week by week, day by day training plan to get me to the starting line of the Dopey Challenge in Walt Disney World in January.  It is an 18-week plan starting from September 4.  Simple, just follow the plan.  I did not make it through the first week before I started going rogue! 

Weeks 1 and 2 were supposed to be recovery weeks following a 22-mile buildup run with the Badgerland Striders.  Each week was just 20 miles total, with a long run of 10 miles.  But the striders were doing a 16-mile taper the following week and I could not pass up another run with my running buddies.  And then the week after that was a 14-mile taper.  My week 3 included back-to-back runs of 4 and 14 miles, so I decided to pull those into week 2.  And then I started having delusions that in week 4 I was going to run the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon.

 

Then in the beginning of week 3 I started feeling the effects of not sticking to the plan.  I was getting sore and fatigued.  My hip pain went from a minor nuisance to real discomfort.  I needed to backoff and let my body recover, like I had planned to do.  The last week of the Badgerland Striders marathon training was a short 8-mile taper.  I decided to leverage my last chance of the season to run with the group.  I ran 7 and 5 mile runs during the week so the 8-miler would give me 20 for the week.  That would put me back to my recovery week mileage.

 

And that is what I did, except for an additional 10K Run/Walk that I did with Cat on Sunday, bringing my total mileage to 26 for the week.  Now I need to determine the plan for week 4.  Do I take another recovery week?  Or do I bring week 5 forward into week 4 and do 6 and 16 miles back-to-back?  It’s a delicate balance of continuing to build up mileage while avoiding injury and fatigue.

 

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