Recovering Better

Week of Jan. 7 ~ 13

105.6km / 65.6 mi.

Monday
3:00 - 20k (5k x 4 w/ 200m walks)
Very easy pace due to having a cold - nose stuffed up and coughing. Also last 5k quads sore and knee a bit more sore than usual.

Tuesday
Rest

Wednesday
1:30 - 10k very easy.
7:30 - 10.6k track workout 1000m x 6.
4:56/33/12/18/13/12 (200m, 3')
Interesting: Knee was more sore than usual at 1:30 and during warmup. Ran first one easy and second one a bit faster, with the knee slightly sore. Then decided to just go faster and see what would happen - if the knee hurt badly, so be it. So I ran 4:12 and there was no pain at all!  The next three, also no pain. So running faster means no pain...for some reason.

Thursday
3:00 - 20k (5k x 4, 100m walks)
29:55/27:56/25:54/25:24. Felt ok coming back, although still have a cold (coughing).

Friday
Gym workout

Saturday
2:20 - 25k. 5 laps of the Palace (4,974m) with Anna and Zach, former HS runners, now good college and post-college runners. Fortunately, it was an easy (jogging) day for them. Both of them will also run Boston, by the way.
26:49/08/30/30/01. Knee was slightly sore, but not bad and didn't get worse.

Sunday
2:00 - 20k (5k x 4 (100, 200, 100m walks)
29:40/27:36 to warm up. Then ran hard/easy for 10k, with hard ones at 4:25/28/34/36/35. In other words, just over marathon pace (4:25/k = 3:06 marathon). Knee was slightly sore, but felt better when going faster.
Legs felt good, i.e., good recovery from yesterday. This may be due to quads finally getting stronger after the long layoff and/or the ketogenic diet taking effect (supposed to aid in speedy recovery). I have been following this low carb (none, except for some veggies) high fat diet quite strictly for a month, so should be keto-adapted, as Volek and Phinney say in their excellent book, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance.
Also, running 2 on, 1 off probably is keeping my legs fresher, even though both are hard (long or fast) days. I like this schedule.

Speaking of schedules, check out this article for what Meb does each day. Must be nice!
http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/better-age?page=single