2025 Week 7 Training Review & Thoughts

I'm thinking I'm going to take a shot at writing a weekly training review each Sunday after my long run throughout this High Five By 55 project. No particular goal with this, just a summarizing of what I've written in my training log and my daily planner. A space to process the week a bit. I'm not quite sure of the format to do this best, so will just try some things, not feel too constrained, and see what works out.

Current Training Focus: 10K training to build some leg speed before beginning Chicago Marathon training.

Current Training Plan: Jack Daniels 5K/10K Phase II Week 1 Plan

Week's Intention: this was a repeat of last week's focus. Last week, I used it as an introduction to this type of speed work without making a big effort to hit the various prescribed paces. This week, I intended to go through the plan again, but with much more focus on hitting paces.

Summary: this week was derailed on Tuesday, day 2. I headed out for the first quality session of the week Tuesday morning, ran my warm up to the spot where I intended to run the workout, then immediately severely tweaked my left hamstring on the very first 200 meter repeat. I tried the second 200 meter repeat, but bailed about 70 meters in with significant pain the hamstring. And that was it for any hard work this week. On the run back home, I decided to dump all workouts and just run easy every day. And only run if I could do so without any real pain and without compromised form. I did still run the targeted 60+ miles for the week including a long run today, but all easy and gentle miles. The good news, after what I feared was a significant injury, it seems I've escaped with just a minor strain that's healing quickly.

Monday: (Nike Vomero 17) 6.40 miles @ 8:45/mile with 10 strides on the treadmill - nothing noteworthy. Time on the treadmill

Tuesday: (Saucony Endorphin Pro 3) 9.50 miles @ 8:13/mile - 2 miles easy, 4x200 at 5:15 pace, 200 jog recovery; 6x400 at 5:20 pace, 400 recovery; 4x200 at 5:15 pace, 200 jog recovery; 3 miles easy - Busted workout! Left hamstring sharp tweak. Left glute a bit, also. Shutting down the 10k plan for this week.

Wednesday: (adidas Prime X2) 6.30 miles @  8:38/mile - Easy on the hamstring. Sore, but no sharp pain. Promising! Will keep running easy for now.

Thursday: (Nike Vomero 17) 7.47 miles @ 8:35/mile on the treadmill - Hamstring was okay. A bit of increasing soreness as pace approached 8:00. But not too bad and not reflected in my form. Continue to keep it easy.

Friday: (New Balance 1080 v13) 3.54 miles @ 9:00/mile - Just an easy, recovery run. Still some soreness in the hamstring, but no stiffness. 

Saturday: (Tyr Valkyrie Speedworks) 9.08 miles @ 8:22/mile - Best I've felt in a couple weeks. The hamstring did tighten up after about 10k, but not badly and no lingering issues. Still keeping it easy.

Sunday: (adidas Prime X2) 16.40 miles @ 8:11/mile - Just focused on keeping the pace easy and putting no undue stress on the hamstring. Could feel a bit of tightness once we ran with the wind and the pace approached 7:30. Backed off and all seems good. A bit of soreness and tightness now a couple hours later, but not significant at all. Overall, feeling like I skirted a real injury!

Lessons (if any): the big one, the hamstring tweak could probably have been anticipated. My hamstrings had felt tight for a few days beforehand. On the morning of the workout, I did my normal warmup before starting, but then added a second warmup after the 2 miles easy to loosen up the hamstrings as they had felt tight on the run over. Perhaps that should have been my sign to bail on the workout then.

Next week: I'm waffling between keeping it another week of easy running and just letting everything heal up nicely, or possibly adding some of the workouts back and running the sharper and faster stuff on a hill to turn down the pace and injury risk. I am undecided as I type this, but leaning toward staying easy another week with no pressing reasons to get back to the harder work quickly.

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