Daniels Blue Plan Week 2

The weather has warmed up, it's a holiday weekend, and some people have started marathon training. I love this time of year! I completed my second week of maintenance training last week with the Daniels Blue Plan. It was another tough week of two quality workouts - a speed and tempo workout. My hamstrings are hating this plan, but I can tell I am starting to build back a lot of speed.

Here was my plan for the week:

Sunday: 60 min easy run, Jasyoga - Post-run hip reset

Monday:  4 X (200m R + 200m recover, 200m R + 200m recover + 400m R + 400m recover) with a warm up and cool down

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: 30-40 min of Cross Training

Thursday: 15 min Easy + 20 min T + 15 min E

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 60-90 min L (I did 8 miles)

Much like last week, I substituted the easy run on Wednesday with cross training and I think this helped keep my hamstrings happy. Tuesday's speed workout built upon the first week with fewer repetitions, but more mileage. Thursday was a new type of run and I really enjoyed this "tempo" type of workout. I am used to Hansons, where the tempo run is at your race pace. In this case, I was running about a minute faster than my race pace for 20 minutes which was challenging, but doable.

Observations:

• the runs are challenging but not to the point where they feel impossible
• my cadence is improving
• my posture and form while running fast is much better than before
• the long and easy runs seem extremely slow after all the speedwork, but it feels good to run at a slow and steady pace
• I am truly using the rest days to help my hamstrings recover before "punishing" them again

This is the first time I have dedicated an entire training block to speed rather than endurance, and I really am enjoying it. As much as I love my long, slow runs, speedwork really makes the time fly by and you feel pretty awesome afterwards.

I used the weekend to spend time on the trails and that helped keep my slow runs, slow. I am also trying to adapt to the warmer temps, which usually takes about 2 weeks. I feel like my tolerance has been better this year than others, but I truly believe that having the "ultra mindset" that I developed after my race has contributed to that. When something feels hard or uncomfortable, I really have to ask myself if it's truly that bad, which it never is. 

Super hot, but happy on the trails

Week 3 of the Blue plan continues to build off of the other 2 weeks, and I am looking forward to progressing. My plan for this week is to try and focus more on yoga after the speed sessions as I have to admit that I am not doing so well at fitting this in. Thankfully I have a massage scheduled this week and it couldn't come soon enough!