The focus of this first month was to start building up my mileage. I started with fifteen, then did four weeks of around 23 miles. I’ve never been good about sticking to rigid schedules so I didn’t try to force myself into one. I always did one long run on the weekend. One week the weather was kind of gross so I only did one other long run. The other weeks I did two or three shorter runs. I didn’t do any specific speed work, but I tried to make the short runs a little faster than my long runs.
Below are a few lessons that I’ve learned over the past five weeks.
Lesson #1: Minor Imbalances Will Be Exaggerated
When riding I always unclip with my left foot. I never thought anything of this until I started doing my weekend long runs. Once I’d hit the point where my form began to fade, I started noticing that my ankles felt noticeably different. I started getting a twinge just behind the bump on the inside of my left ankle. Once I noticed this sensation I couldn’t ignore it. I’m still not sure whether the clip in factor is relevant; I’m trying an experiment for the next month where I use my right foot to clip in. On my commute in this morning, when I managed to time my lights pretty well, I clipped out seven times; when I don’t time it well the count is closer to a dozen. I’ll post more about the results of this experiment in next month’s update.
Lesson #2: Running More Frequently is Less Stressful than Running Long
One week, because of gross weather, I did two long runs and no other running. It took me awhile to recover from these runs and that’s the week I began to notice the tweak in my ankle. The other weeks, when I ran more frequently, I was able to get in better quality runs since I could keep my form up for the whole run, and I generally felt fine the next day, albeit a little stiff in the legs.
Lesson #3: You Can’t Discount Your Bike Miles
For the past few years, I’ve taken a dichotomous approach to cycling: I have my commute miles and my fun miles. I know that they all count, but if you were to ask me how many training miles I do, I’d give you the total less commute miles. Since coming back, most of my bike miles have been for commuting. My round trip commute is now almost twenty miles so I am getting quite a bit of riding in without even counting it. When I started adding some runs in, I was still discounting my bike miles. I would be stuck at work, late for a group run so I’d sprint the ten miles home on my bike, change clothes, and run to the meeting spot. When we’d start running I would notice that my legs were heavy and I felt similar to how I do at the end of my long runs. It wasn’t until this happened a few times that I realized that I cannot discount my commute.
Lesson #4: Run With Good Runners
This isn’t necessarily something that everyone has the luxury to do, but several of my friends are very good runners who know a lot about the sport. I tend to run with them when I want to go faster than usual as they’ll hold me to a pace that I can sustain but would be too lazy to do if I were running on my own. The biggest advantage of running with people who are good runners is that they can spot poor form quickly. As a newbie, bad habits are easy to fall into, but they are also easy to fix. If someone can spot these for you early on and help you fix it, it’ll be more comfortable in the long run. As a side note, my bike handling skills improved significantly once I started doing more group rides. Just make sure that you’re imitating people who know what they are doing 🙂
Lesson #5: Work On Good Form
This is a follow up to running with good runners. I try to spend one run every week where I really focus on keeping good form. Right now my primary focus is my hand placement. I tend to run with my hands near my shoulders. I believe it’s a bad habit I picked up when I played field hockey. I learned to run with a stick in my hand and teammates around me; it was safer to keep the stick more vertical than horizontal. However, ever since high school I have dealt with a right shoulder that feels like it is getting pinched the longer and faster I run. So, I ask people that I run with to point out to me if they notice my hands creeping towards my shoulders, and I dedicate one run each week to actively work out these bad habits.
I’m running a half marathon this coming weekend for a friend’s birthday (yes, I have some odd friends) and then heading to Boston to watch the marathon. I’ll write about that when I come back; this is my first time in Boston on Patriots’ Day. Growing up in Massachusetts I always had school off so I watched the marathon every year through high school; in college some MA friends and I would watch the marathon and pretend we had the day off 🙂
If you have any questions or ideas for me to play with in the next month, feel free to leave me a note in the comments, or email me directly.
