Weekly Recap: Training Reboot Week 2 (4/2-4/8)

Seashells and fresh starts

I've been finding shells a lot on my runs lately, which should be surprising to no one since I run along the sound and there's a stretch where I run on sand/unpaved road. But shells bring good luck, right? At least I'm hoping they do because I could really use it after the three year bender of bad luck I've been on.

As a brief recap for those who forgot or who haven't followed along on this ridiculous journey, these are the things I've dealt with one after another over the past few years:

Chronic sinusitis and asthma that resulted in emergency medical attention - both brought on by terrible allergies (I'm allergic to Charleston, apparently)
Extreme sleep deprivation (2-3 hours of sleep a night for about 10 months straight) when my son had sleep regression and my husband was away for work most weeks
That sleep deprivation led to a 6-9 month battle with anemia and low Vitamin D
Lower back pain that made it hard to stand up straight, let alone move much
A sore achilles from super tight calf muscles (probably the least of all the problems, but it happened so it made the recap list)
An antibiotic resistant infection that lasted for about 5 months
Terrible reactions to the rounds and rounds antibiotics for said infection (including temporary pins and needles and numbness in my hands and feet) culminating in an injured piriformis that caused debilitating sciatica and completely sidelined me for 6 weeks

All of the above kept me from running well (or in some cases, running at all), and caused me to lose a ton of fitness, and gain more weight than I'd like (or like to admit - who knew you couldn't eat like you're training for a marathon when you're not training at all). And obviously all of that sickness also had an effect on my life outside of running, too. Sounds fun, right?

But here's the good news - all of that stuff was fixable. None of the fixes were fast, but at least everything was fixable.

I've got my allergies, and subsequently my asthma and sinusitis, under control from allergy shots; I'm no longer sleep deprived and my iron and low Vitamin D are both back to normal; the back/achilles/piriformis issues are gone and kept at bay by regular visits to the chiropractor, massage therapist, and Stretch Zone; and the antibiotic resistant infection has also left the building and I feel mostly recovered from the havoc the months of antibiotics wreaked on my system (although there are lingering side effects).

And that brings me to here. To today. To this training reboot, and a new start (and I'm hoping it's not a false start - I've had several of those in the mix of the fun).

And seashells.

I'm taking the seashells as a sign of hope that this time is finally my time.

Read on for details of my workouts this past week, and don't forget to stop by my April Goals blog post. I'm cautiously optimistic and actually set some small running/fitness goals for myself this month for the first time in a long time.

Workout Summary

  
   Monday
    3 mile bike ride
  
   Tuesday
    F45 strength class 
  
   Wednesday
   Off
  
   Thursday
    Run: 5 miles (easy @ 8:58 pace) 
  
   Friday
   Run: 5 miles (easy @ 9:11 pace)
  
Saturday
Run: 3 miles (easy @ 8:59 pace)
  
   Sunday
    Run: 7 miles (long run @ 9:20 pace)
  
   Totals
   
     5 runs/20 miles

     1 bike ride

     1 strength

Monday

Work was busy and I was a little tired from our weekend, so I planned for Monday to be a rest day. But it was so nice outside that we ended up going on a short family bike ride around the neighborhood.

Tuesday

I wanted to run on Tuesday morning, I really did, but I was tired and had a bunch of work to do. So I decided to move Tuesday's run to Wednesday and just go to F45 for strength training in the evening. That ultimately turned out to be a bad move (the missed run, not the strength workout).

But at least we had a beautiful sunset and a pretty blue sky in the evening.

Wednesday

Wednesday I felt awful all day and by the end of the day, I had a migraine. No workouts occurred. I went to bed with a migraine and woke up (in the wee hours) on Thursday with it still raging. So that run that I had pushed off from the day before didn't end up happening.

Thursday

The migraine and accompanying nausea were under control by around 8 am and by mid-morning I felt okay enough to run and got in 5 easy miles. But that knocked my schedule off for the day and I missed my strength workout.

Friday

Since I missed Wednesday's run and I was determined to get all of my runs in for the week (which was 4, by the way, per my coach), I hauled my butt out on Friday for a 5-miler. Then I missed yoga because I ran instead (that's two weeks in row without yoga now - yikes!).

Saturday

Back to regularly scheduled programming (finally), but because I backloaded my runs at the end of the week with no breaks, I took it easy out there on my 3-miler.

Sunday

After a week of a temps that felt more normal for us here in the sunny South, Sunday was back to cold and windy - in the 40s and crazy headwinds for the duration of my run. I know 40s doesn't sound cold to most people but it's absolutely frigid here in Charleston and it's unheard of for it to be that cold in April.

Anyway, I was tired when I started this run and just wanted to get in the miles. The wind really bothered me for some reason where normally I'm okay with wind since my new run routes from the new house are pretty consistently windy. On Sunday, though, the cold and wind sucked the energy out of my already tired body. The run wasn't a total disaster, but it wasn't what I'd call an awesome run. But the miles are in the bank and I got all my runs in for the week.

And that was my week. A little weird and a lot off schedule, but I got it done. And I found some treasures along the way.

How was your week? Where is spring? Has anyone actually seen it?