My typical week of training

I've been asked many times..."What is your typical week of training like?"

A simple answer without going into much detail is that every week is different.  Other than the Fall season, my training changes from week to week based on the goals for that week.  Sometimes I might have a race coming up or we might work on a specific part of my racing where I am weak.  To give you all a general framework, I'll lay out a typical week of training....

Monday
Morning Aerobic Strength Workout
    ex: 8x1000m
Afternoon/Evening Weight Room Session
Evening Swim
   Usually around 30 minutes

Tuesday
Recovery Run
Sports Massage

Wednesday
Morning Tempo or Fartlek Workout
   Distances and paces vary throughout the year
Afternoon Speed Session or Hills
  ex: 6x200 or 6x150m hills
Evening Weight Room Session

Thursday
Recovery Run

Friday
Race Specific Workout - These workouts usually develop over time from 5k type of workouts in the Fall to 800 or mile specific workouts in the late winter and spring
   ex: 8x400 at mile race pace or 3x400 at 800 race pace
Afternoon/Evening Weight Room Session
Evening Swim

Saturday
Long Run

Sunday
Recovery Run

That's the basic outline of my training schedule for the year.  Again, from week to week we may shift workouts around based on the goals for the week.  Sometimes we back off of swimming and weight room sessions in order to get ready for hard workouts coming up.

Last week, as it was my first week back from Europe, I did a lighter fartlek workout on Tuesday (6x2mins at 5k pace, 2 minutes recovery).  Then on Friday I had a mixture of a mile and an 800 workout with 3x600 at mile race pace and 1x300 at 800 meter pace, or just a little bit faster.  My long run for the week was twelve miles.  I've gotten up to fourteen miles this year and was pretty consistent there but as the season goes on, we try to make sure we taper and freshen up my legs.

On Sunday I experienced a little bit of pain in my achilles and since then have taken three days off from running completely.  But I've made sure to cross train by going into the pool and doing anywhere from 60 minutes to 90 minutes of swimming to continue working my cardiovascular system.  Other things that I have been doing to work on my achilles include: taking anti-inflammatory medication such as Ibuprofen, using my foam roller to keep my calf muscles and achilles loose, icing the area of pain, and putting heel cups in my shoes to raise my heel slightly and take some stress off of the achilles area.  There are other methods of treating this type of injury, but I find that these work the best for me.

Paying attention to injuries and making sure you don't train through them is a HUGE part of this sport.  Running through a little bit of pain because you think it will go away isn't always the best recipe for success.  It could lead to big problems down the road and instead of taking a few days off initially, you could end up taking weeks, or months, off later.

I should be back up and running in no time though as the achilles feels like it's just about back to full strength.  My plans are still to race again this summer.  We will evaluate my fitness next week and see where I am!