We never try to catch up. It is better if some thing is missed that it is missed - and forgotten - and you just stay on the normal plan - Barry Magee.
This week's quote is something that Barry told me a couple of times when he was coaching me and it is something I actively try to practice (though I do need to remind myself occasionally!).
It is not about being inflexible and sticking rigidly to a plan; it is more to do with keeping the end goal in sight. A missed day or session is, simply, missed. Forget it. Move on.
Playing catch-up and trying to shoe-horn things in invites injuries and can create a cyclical set of circumstances, so your best bet is to simply roll with the punches.
This is something that top-level athletes seem to do better than the rest of us. Abel Kirui, for example, the Kenyan double marathon world champion, missed a big chunk of training due to a knee injury in the month before the 2011 world championships. He made no attempt to catch-up on the missed training and took a calm, measured approach. The end result was that he walked away as world champion. How many of us in the same situation would have dealt with it as well?
Monday: am: 15.01m easy.
pm: 6.5m easy.
Tuesday: am: 9.1m with 3m Time Trial (aka ~10km race effort).
pm: 13.02m easy - lost toenail.
Wednesday: off - spent the day treating the nail.
Thursday: am: 11.36m with 15 x 2mins fast/1min jog.
pm: 10.07m jog
Friday: am: 6.3m easy.
Saturday: off - planned.
Sunday: am: 13.09m easy + form drills.
Total: 84.45m
My plan for this week was to keep the volume of quicker running lower, especially earlier in the week, because of how my glutes felt after last Saturday, but to keep the overall quantity high.
As things conspired the week ended up being lighter than intended all around due to losing a complete toenail and bed Tuesday evening - it had been going that way for a week as it snagged on my long run the previous week and was a bit inflamed.
With it being so far out from Amsterdam the risks of running with an altered stride outweighed the benefits of continuing to train on it, so I opted to rest and treat it. Friday evening was more of the same as it was tender enough to make it more sensible to rest it, especially as Saturday is my normal rest day and therefore it left me with about 48hrs straight of no running to leave it heal.
Come Sunday morning, job done and all good to go.
The only real negative of the week was the absence of a long run, but that was somewhat counter-balanced by having 3 medium-long runs (15, 13, 13) in there, which, for now, will have kept my endurance in stasis at least.
To look at the positives from the week.
Tuesday morning was a surprise. A Lydiard style 3m Time Trial is roughly 10km race effort, but with the aim being an even pace/effort throughout and no fast finish allowed. I was quite pleasantly surprised to average 5:27 per mile for the 3m, having expected maybe 8-10s per mile slower.
Thursday morning's workout was done on a mildly undulating road loop (rather than flat grass as per last week) and averaged 10km race effort as a whole - first two reps easing in, last two nudging a bit past 10km effort. The overall average pace for the session of 5:26 per mile showing that Tuesday's effort wasn't a one-off or misjudgement of effort on my part.
So, pleasing improvement all around. My back tightened up as the week progressed, but it will have been 2 weeks between sessions by the time I next see the osteopath, so that was to be expected.
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