There are 18 weeks in the Hal Higdon Intermediate I training program. I timed it to coincide with 18 weeks prior to the California International Marathon, including the taper. Then, 4 weeks into training, I was running a 6-miler when I twisted my ankle slightly and landed on my knees & hands.
At first, I thought my knees were the worst of it. Indeed, my left knee still isn't completely healed and has a nasty scar on it. Later that day, however, I found I was hurt more than I first expected, so I took a week off. For good measure, I had it x-rayed and was told nothing was broken.
Almost a week later I was walking in the yard when I stepped in a hole that was dug by the dog. Within seconds, my ankle swelled up to about 4 times its size. My first thought was, "No! CIM!"
So I started to play the waiting game. I had the ankle x-rayed yet again, and once again the doctor told me it was just a sprain. A major sprain, but a sprain nonetheless. I started reading up on ankle injuries, how to speed healing, how to get better as quickly as possible. Almost everything I read told me to stay off it and wait until it healed.
So that's what I did for the next 6 weeks. I set a date to start running again, but was deathly afraid of re-injury. Then someone recommended KT Tape. I'd heard about it quite a few times, watched some videos, but had never actually tried it, partly because I thought it would be difficult to find. Come to find out, Big 5 had it, so I picked up a roll and taped myself up.
The KT Tape made a HUGE difference, both with running, and with simply living. I thought it wasn't making a difference until I took it off to find the pain was still there. Honestly, if it weren't for the KT Tape, there's no way I could have trained.
7 weeks after injury and 11 weeks after the start of training, I started back with running. Not only did I feel like I couldn't run, but I was basically starting from scratch. My pace was slow, around 12 minutes per mile. Something I didn't expect was the soreness in my legs. My average heart rate was close to 170, when it should have been around 150. Regardless: I was running again!
I drew up a plan to train in the short time I had before CIM. It was strange though, I had 9 weeks to train from scratch where normally it would take 18.
The first week my primary goal was to build up weekly mileage, while maintaining short runs during the week. My intent was to run 5 miles per day for 6 days, but one of those days I was sick. Total mileage for that week was 25, which interestingly enough was the peak for the training I did for the Avenue of the Giants.
The second week was the first real training week, and again I ran 25 miles. This time though, I shifted the mileage from midweek to include a Saturday run and Sunday long run. From here, I progressed week to week, with the weekend long runs building gradually to where I was today at 20 miles.
The original Hal Higdon plan I was following included two 20-milers and stepbacks every 3 weeks. By removing the stepbacks and extra 20-miler, I was able to build the long runs faster.
I was expecting today's 20-miler to go better than it did, based on last week's 18. I quickly found, however, that I was much more fatigued, much more sore, and less interested in the run than I wanted to be. I had a very difficult time getting into that "groove" where you feel you could run forever at that pace. As a result, I did a lot of walking.
Looking back though, the pace didn't matter. I feel confident that CIM will go just fine, and I'll still beat my Avenue of the Giants finishing time of 6:21:30.
Splits
Mile 1: 10:28
Mile 2: 10:46
Mile 3: 11:23
Mile 4: 13:09
Mile 5: 13:52
Mile 6: 13:38
Mile 7: 13:15
Mile 8: 13:00
Mile 9: 13:17
Mile 10: 18:24
Mile 11: 14:03
Mile 12: 14:55
Mile 13: 12:35
Mile 14: 12:59
Mile 15: 15:49
Mile 16: 13:24
Mile 17: 14:23
Mile 18: 12:59
Mile 19: 12:34
Mile 20: 11:13
20 miles, 4:35:06, 13:17/mi average, 2223 calories burned
Thus ends the actual training, and the beginning of the taper! 3 weeks from today is CIM.
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