Less than 11 weeks to the Olympic Marathon Trials: Last week's training

It’s been quite a while since my last training post, and unfortunately the reason for that has been another injury set back.  After healing from a navicular stress reaction over the summer, my return to running lasted about 7 weeks before suffering a completely different stress fracture.  What started as mild back tightness quickly turned into stabbing pain that left me barely able to walk, and I soon discovered with an MRI that I had a sacral stress fracture.  The most likely explanation seems to be the weakness in my foot from being in a boot for a month with the navicular stress reaction changed my gate just enough to put more pressure on the opposite side of my body.  I wasn’t pushing off fully, and the result was another bone injury. After being healthy for most of the last decade, this has been a difficult time for me, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The last 8 weeks have consisted mostly of a great deal of cross training. I’ve been putting 2 – 2.5 hours a day between the Alter-G, elliptical, and aqua jogging. Fortunately I was able to start ground running a couple of weeks ago, and so far things are progressing well. I am forced to push the envelope a bit with the Olympic Marathon Trials coming up in February.  This time around, I have been able to cross train with much greater intensity as the sacrum is low-risk compared to the navicular. The month of Alter-G running before I took my first steps at full body weight on the ground has helped ease the transition greatly. I already feel fairly fit and natural early on in my return.

I will have a 12 week build-up to the Olympic Marathon Trials, but it will be much different than the past.  At the 12 week mark this time around, I was doing my first few minutes of running on a turf field. The scenario is far from ideal, but I have to give it a shot. I expect to have about 8 weeks of solid training heading into the race. I am hoping deep down that time off has been beneficial, and that fitness will return very quickly. This will have to be a much lower volume training block than the past, but if I focus on getting the quality long run in every week, I’m confident that my last 10 years of 100+ miles a week will continue to serve as a base.

My training log moving forward will look a bit different for a while as I will continue mixing cross training in. I’m not going to count the total miles at this point as I don’t want to pressure myself into coming back too fast. The log below is from last week, and I’ll be putting out another post on Tuesday with this week’s training, which has taken a significant step forward. I’m heading into unknown territory, but I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by a great support group of coaches, athletes, and doctors sharing their wisdom and expertise.  I just arrived in Stillwater last night in order to take advantage of the cross training facilities here, spend time with my coach, and put myself into training camp mode.

Thank you for following my training, and thanks to all those who reached out to me during my long period of silence. I’m very happy to be back in training mode, and I’m going to do everything I can to get to the line on February 13^th in Los Angeles. with a shot to make the 2016 US Marathon Team. 

Week 1	AM	PM	Strength/Drills
Monday	80 min alter g	70 minutes aqua jog
Tuesday	75 min alter g	1 hour aqua jog	1 hour
Wednesday	30 minute jog	95 minutes aqua jogging
Thursday	40 minute jog	90 minutes Zero Runner	1 hour
Friday	off	off	30 minutes
Saturday	50 minutes jog	75 minutes elliptical
Sunday	40 minutes jog	80 minutes ellipitical	30 minutes