So far I’m loving the difficulty of the Hanson’s plan. It’s what intrigued me in the first place. I’m the type of person who sees something that’s hard and says, “If it’s been done, why can’t I do it?” I don’t know if that’s the best mentality to have, lol, but it’s gotten me to try a lot of fun, crazy stuff.
Anyway, when I decided to take a break from teaching and become a stay at home mom, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try the Hanson’s 6-days-of-running plan. In my other training cycles, I’ve done 4 days a week with an occasional sprinkle of an extra run or cross training day. I figured, if I was going to try a plan that had so much running, I might as well go for it now that I don’t have a job to worry about (I take care of my kids which is the toughest job ever but you know what I mean).
When it came time on deciding between the Beginner or the Advanced, I leaned towards the Advanced because it got to business a lot quicker than the Beginner. In the Beginner, the first 5 weeks are “Easy” runs which for my goal pace is between 9:45-10:45. I just couldn’t see myself adhering to that for 6 days a week for 5 weeks. The Advanced plan started with the fun stuff– speed work at Week 2 and tempo at Week 3–earlier and I liked that.
Fast forward to Week 5 and I’ve been doing great, nailing the workouts and feeling really confident. Except….my shin is starting to hurt. The shin where I had my stress fracture.
I’m so frustrated because I’ve been doing so well with this plan; I actually like it, and I feel like I’ve improved so much as a runner. And I’ve been stretching, rolling like a good girl and I just don’t understand why my body won’t cooperate. It’s not even fatigue, because I don’t feel tired (miraculously), it’s just the gosh darn shin that’s sore.
If I’m honest, I worried that going from 25-30 miles a week and 4 days of running, to 40-50 miles a week and 6 days of running was going to bring about something. I did my best to transition, to “pre-train,” but I think there’s no avoiding some type of injury-likeness with a jump in mileage like that. Which is what I think is happening with me.
Anyway, what did I do wrong? I think I should’ve stuck with the Beginner plan–modified it, or done something, but starting right away with the Advanced, even though I’ve done “well” with it so far, probably wasn’t the best idea. This is only my 4th marathon, after all.
So, I’ve decided to go to the Beginner’s plan Week 6, which is the week I’m on now. I’ve already passed the 5 weeks of “Easy” running I wanted to avoid, and I’ll get the speed and tempo workouts but just with less mileage. It’s still a shit ton of miles, but less so than the Advanced. I’m hoping that this will help my cause and still keep me happy. I really want to try this plan all the way through.
Of course I’ll continue to stretch, roll, ice, compress the hell out of my shin and if I see that things aren’t getting better, I’ll have to reassess everything. I’m hoping it won’t get to that. I’m proud of myself that I’m addressing it now while it’s simply soreness and not when it’s a full blown I-can’t-run-pain.
There’s the update. Mistakes happens and all you can do is just keep on, keep on.
–Are you good at admitting you were wrong?
