March Recap

As athletes, we face many challenges- as does everyone else- ours are just a little different. Having my running be restricted for the past two months has been much harder than I thought. After pulling my hamstring at the end of January, I spent almost all of February not running at all. Thank god biking didn’t bother it at all, so I was able to keep up my fitness that way. When I finally did go back to running sometimes around the beginning of this month, my sessions were only 20min long at a near-walking speed. I think this whole process was more mentally tough than anything! Anyways, I have worked my way up to 40-ish km/week now at almost a normal pace with almost no pain…except stiff muscles from not running very much!

I have been extremely lucking in the injury department, so this was a tough one. With St. George coming up in 5 weeks, my patience has been tested, but I have to remind myself that even one session too early could put me out for half the season. I still have some time to get some fast sessions in, but I am no doubt “scared” to go too hard too fast. As much as I hate tempo and interval runs, I am itching to get back to them!

On the flip side, I have been able to spend a LOT of time in the pool, with some weeks topping off 27km. This has been the biggest change in my training, as a year ago, I’d be lucky to get 8-9km. While it has been hard to see any big gains as my arms have been so tired, I have to trust it will help. Even if the times aren’t significantly faster, coming out on the bike feeling fresher will be a gain in itself!

Speaking of biking….I didn’t really spend too much time in the saddle December, Jan, and most of Feb. But…. My biking fitness bounced back faster than we thought it would. More than likely because I haven’t been running as much, but nonetheless, I have gotten a confidence boost from this. We have had a long winter here, so I am eager to bring my training fitness to the road!

So all-in-all, I am feeling good about what the next 5 weeks will bring. The race season countdown begins!:)