You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t mentioned a peep about the Hamburg Half Marathon in more a month. It’s coming up in less than three weeks, so maybe I should give you a bit of an update, huh?
Things on the training front have been very frustrating. Around the time I returned from Norway, I noticed some knee pain, so I decided to take it easy, foam roll like crazy, and ice a lot. Except after a week or so of that, I didn’t really notice any difference. I ended up at the sports doctor, where he taped me up with kinesio tape and scheduled me for weekly knee injections. I’m a little dubious about the efficacy of either treatment, but I figured, what the hell.
I’ve been back up and running for about a week and a half and started integrating speed and interval workouts back into my training last week. Although I declared 2013 the year of the sub-2:00 half marathon, I’ve had to reassess my goals for this race, given the limited amount of time I have left to train. I’ve modified the remaining weeks of training, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to get ready for the race. It might not be the speedy race I was hoping it would be, but I think I can still enjoy it.
Anyway, let’s get down to the details of my training this past week:
- Tuesday, strength training: Focused on glutes, as always.
- Wednesday, speed training: Ran 4 repeats of 800m in 4:16, 4:19, 4:28, 4:42. Can you tell I’m out of training?
- Thursday, cross-training: 40 minutes on the exercise bike + 15 minutes of strength training on glutes.
- Friday, cross-training: Ripped in 30, Level 4.
- Saturday, run: 4 miles. Should have been a tempo run, but it just wasn’t happening. Plus 15 minutes core workout with Nike Training Club.
- Sunday: Rest.
- Monday, long run: 8 miles. Slow slog through crazy wind along the Weser in Bremen. Not my best run ever, but my longest in about a month.
So that’s it for now. I’m feeling a bit less discouraged after this week, so I hope I have lots of exciting progress to report to you next week.
Have you ever used kinesio tape? Or gotten knee injections? What did you think?
More posts about training for the Hamburg Half:
My friend uses KT take on her foot and leg, I think that is where anyway, and she says it has really helped her. She only uses it on her long runs 5+ miles because of the expense. She is doing the Rock n Roll half in a couple of weeks. Before she started using the tape she had a hard time doing the long runs without pain. Good luck on your training and the race! I hope the pain goes away quickly!
Thanks, Richelle! Yeah, the tape is not cheap, that’s for sure. I just bought enough to get me through this training cycle. After that, I probably need to consider concentrating on shorter distances, which don’t seem to bother my knees as much. (There’s lots of room for improvement on my speed, so I think it could still be challenging.)
It’s been so cool to follow your running on Facebook. You’re doing awesome!
KT tape is awesome if I do say so myself. I’ve definitely noticed a difference when I’ve used it. Although I’m not great at applying it myself and I love having the experts do it at the expos! :) It is hard to reassess goals, even if it is the right thing to do.
Yeah, I definitely noticed a difference between when the doctor applied the tape and the first time that I did it. :) Guess that will just take a bit of practice!