Happy New Year, all! I hope you have a fantastic year ahead in running and everything else.
So, the M-word. The M-word is Maffetone. Those of you sensitive to Maf threads can bail out now
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I took three weeks off over the holidays. I intended to take just one, but ended up at three weeks of delicious sloth and not caring before I got back out on the road this week. I was hoping I hadn't lost too much ground, and the results were encouraging and insightful.
I lost muscle condition pretty fast. After each of two 10km runs this week my calves have been in a not insignificant amount of pain. Not injury level, but a bit surprising nonetheless. But that seems to be the only backslide (that and few pounds).
To my surprise, over the 10km distance, my MAF pace at 133bpm dropped from the region of 8:20/km to 7:26/km for the first run and 7:31/km for the second. The niggles I was feeling in my left foot have dissipated as well, and my foot toughness has increased tremendously. I barely feel a 10km run now, whereas before I would certainly feel the effect in my feet, and 15km was at the absolute limit of what my feet could stand.
I guess I needed that rest! What this tells me is that despite my best intentions, I nonetheless still managed to overtrain last year. It's such a hard thing to throttle back as a runner and I was clinging to the notion that my feetback would be enough, but clearly I was still pushing harder than I should. I think I'm close to getting the balance right, though, and will be able to use my Maf pace as a good litmus test for overtraining this year.
All in all, it's great to be back on the road and have a little reward for my sloth on top of it!
So, the M-word. The M-word is Maffetone. Those of you sensitive to Maf threads can bail out now
.I took three weeks off over the holidays. I intended to take just one, but ended up at three weeks of delicious sloth and not caring before I got back out on the road this week. I was hoping I hadn't lost too much ground, and the results were encouraging and insightful.
I lost muscle condition pretty fast. After each of two 10km runs this week my calves have been in a not insignificant amount of pain. Not injury level, but a bit surprising nonetheless. But that seems to be the only backslide (that and few pounds).
To my surprise, over the 10km distance, my MAF pace at 133bpm dropped from the region of 8:20/km to 7:26/km for the first run and 7:31/km for the second. The niggles I was feeling in my left foot have dissipated as well, and my foot toughness has increased tremendously. I barely feel a 10km run now, whereas before I would certainly feel the effect in my feet, and 15km was at the absolute limit of what my feet could stand.
I guess I needed that rest! What this tells me is that despite my best intentions, I nonetheless still managed to overtrain last year. It's such a hard thing to throttle back as a runner and I was clinging to the notion that my feetback would be enough, but clearly I was still pushing harder than I should. I think I'm close to getting the balance right, though, and will be able to use my Maf pace as a good litmus test for overtraining this year.
All in all, it's great to be back on the road and have a little reward for my sloth on top of it!
