Working Class Runner

Hello once again from Flagstaff. I’ll head back to Vegas later today.

My groin didn’t feel great last night due to a separate issue, probably because I had the strap misfitted during the morning excursions. Without getting into specifics, certain parts were a bit sore from apparently being pinched, and I decided not to do any further workouts in Flagstaff this weekend.

Instead, after a nap, I felt good enough to go out last night for a walk to Downtown, and after a drink spent some time wandering around.

That itself felt fairly enjoyable, though as I’ve mentioned before my body nowadays doesn’t like alcohol very much. I didn’t sleep much or sleep great, and after waking up I uncharacteristically decided to sleep in a bit before rising. Yesterday’s issue felt better but my adductor itself (the prior groin problem) still felt sore, so I stuck to my plan not to go run. I packed up and checked out shortly after 6am before heading out to breakfast and coffee.

Tomorrow I have a scheduled off day from training, and I think with today I’ll make it back to back full days off to see if today’s soreness will resolve. I’m even open to not training for several days, and doing other exercise in the interim.

My hamstring still feels lingering but slight deep tissue soreness. Otherwise it feels better. I can still stand and balance on my left leg just fine. I think at this point, especially with illness going around all over, full rest is going to do me better overall than any light training the next couple days. I want to see if it can just fully heal up.

I just got and am reading Easy Interval Method by Dutch runner Klaas Lok. It’s the first time in a bit I’ve ordered a print version of a book, as there’s actually no Kindle version. The book itself is only 154 pages long and densely packed with text.

Lok’s Easy Interval Method is adapted from the teachings of late running coach Herman Verheul, a unique approach to training where pretty much all your training centers around a moderated volume of measured, moderate-to-high intensity intervals, and much less steady state running. Allegedly a variety of top runners, including recent Kenyan gold medalist Faith Kipyegon, have employed the approach with excellent results.

Lok argues that steady state running, while good aerobically, also reduces your “reactivity”, your ability to run fast, in the long run. At the same time, many runners train so hard so often that this too reduces their ability to run fast.

So Lok sets out a methodology that splits the difference, having you run faster-than-easy intervals more often, but also not running as much as the killer 10+ daily mile, double day, high volume weeks that seasoned runners do. His plans feature a lot of stuff like 400m-1000m repeats run a few seconds slower than you’d run them in other methods, typically with walking breaks and stops rather than fully jogging out the breaks (he only has you full-jog the breaks if training for longer races like the marathon).

I spent much of yesterday reading through the book, and (especially with where I’m at now after the setbacks) I can see myself adopting this approach going forward. I do note that my issues occurred after my 12 mile paced treadmill session, which was fairly challenging.

If there’s a better way to work on developing my velocity and endurance at distance, while taking one or more rest days each week (his planning has you take as many as 4 days off during the week), I am open to trying it. If this somehow works out for Indy in November, I may become a convert.

As mentioned, I’ll have today and tomorrow off at least before making any adjustments to training going forward. Then again, training’s already had to adjust: I haven’t run more than 5K in over a couple weeks, and I’ve had to cross train in the interim to maintain aerobic fitness.

I’ll be hanging out in Flagstaff a bit before taking the drive west back to Vegas. More to come.