Track and Field Blogs - Dom Maio

From doing all these miles I am remembering what cross was like before I got injured. I’m doing 58 miles this week and got in some really quick 5x1200m intervals averaging 4:45pace. Last year the Monday before lighthouse I did this workout, but I only did 4 and I did it with 4minutes rest. My times all positive split with the first one being the quickest in 3:34.6. This time I did it with lots of control, 3minutes rest, and the fastest was the last one even if my second interval had some extra distance. I like intervals better than doing any fartleks, but I do stay moving after all my intervals to keep the blood flow going in my legs. I just never count any of those miles much like I don’t count any cool down or warm up miles on race days sometimes. I know how and why I got hurt during cross. I stressed my legs hard in the last 400m at Concordia to take 2^nd place. The next day I went really easy at the park measuring out the course for conference, but we decided not to make it a long run. On Monday the 12miles with half at tempo was changed to 14miles with half at tempo. I knew I wasn’t feeling 100% and was really worried because I never did a Monday long run at that length and at that intensity or even been at this type of mileage before. Plus it was on concrete in Milwaukee. My Achilles bothered me that night, but we still continued with 3x1.5miles on Wednesday under the impression that icing would make it go away even though it still bothered me just a bit on Tuesday. When I think about it I ran 3 hard days in six days. One race, one long tempo at high mileage, one hard work out, and then two days rest before a race again with the most mileage I’ve ever done. 4 quality days in 8days!! I got sick before that race which probably made any sense of pain unnoticeable. I was sick off and on for 3wks and even still for the next race where we bumped up volume of intervals to 2400meters, and I started taking Fri and Sun off to help before things got really ugly. I kept getting the impression if I stopped I was going to lose some ability, but during that time I desperately wanted to stop because my legs didn’t feel the same and I couldn't stay healthy. The amount of yellow in my logs was crazy. That week after I biked for a week straight and took absurd amounts of Ibuprofen before I slowly worked back running lower miles and slower paces with very few hard days where I really watched myself. If I could do it over again I would have taken a week off the second it started bothering me and especially after getting sick. Instead of dragging out the injury for a Month. I know not to run that many quality days and know what I felt like during that time. Now I make adjustments when I don’t feel so well to avoid anything. Taking the time off is what my body needed and when I felt better I could unload on my legs again. Doing high mileage now I do 2 a day to reach mileage goals and have cut out my biking as I’m stepping up. I don’t want my long run any longer than 12miles with only 3mile drops and on weeks where there are no races I watch how I feel if it was too great an intensity. My quality days are consisting of intervals at LT paces with increasing duration with an overall mileage of 6k or straight up tempo days at 5:30-6:00min pace. In watching, feeling, and questioning everything and reason for what I do every week I can hopefully prevent any future injuries.