January 2012 Training Summary

Posted by on Jan 31, 2012 in My Running

January has been quite unexpected for many reasons. To begin, I didn’t anticipate it to end so soon. Although I had several productive workouts – the truth is, I’m nowhere near where I should be. In terms of monthly mileage, I’ve only run about half of what I planned. I was shooting for 200 miles; I ended up with around 130. And my speed took a big dip from my injury as well. Yesterday’s tempo run was tough and disappointing, for I was about 20~30 seconds slower than my target pace.

Maybe I’m still relatively new when it comes to post-injury recovery and how to get back to where I was. Or perhaps the approaching date of NYC Half 2012 has been keeping me restless since my entry was accepted. I find myself increasingly frustrated every 1 out of 5 runs. And it’s a viscous cycle because the more frustrated I am, the harder I push myself towards injury.

I’ve gotten some new pains since my recovery from last year’s Achilles tendinitis. It began with my left knee cap. Now that it’s slowly going away, my left calf started to scream after last week’s track workout. I’ve never experienced these symptoms before – and I have a pretty good idea about their causes. I’m getting new injuries because I am training with a higher intensity that I used to.

Going forward, I need to just focus on my short term goals and slowly zoom out to the whole picture. The task at hand is to get my PR in the upcoming NYC Half in March. Correction: the task at hand is to get to the starting line without injury in March. At this point, I shouldn’t be too worried about the lost miles, as it’s still early in the year. Overall, January was still productive – thanks to the good weather, by the way. And if anything, I should be glad that I have been able to put in some consistent miles after all.

Author Bio: Kevin Lu is an engineer, currently working in the field of orthopedic devices. He received his B.S. and M.S. in biomedical engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Science, technology, and running are Kevin’s passions. In his spare time, Kevin trains for and participates in races of various distances. In addition to Beyond Distance, Kevin also writes for iRunnerBlog as a contributing tech columnist. Find out more about Kevin here and follow him on Twitter.

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  • Sarah

    Recover properly and listen to your body, the older we get the slower the injuries heal and it is easy to push oneself to more injury,  we can’t always do what we did before. but we are still out there running and in time not always as fast as we want it we will recover and thrive, just maybe a bit slower

    • http://www.BeyondDistance.com/ Kevin

      Well said, Sarah. Thanks for your wisdom!

  • Hannapak

    You should ask a physical therapist for advice. I think we both know who you can ask! It’s better to take it easy and heal before it is permanently damaged and you can’t run anymore!! Take care of yourself Kevin, i’m proud of you and your running achievements! Superman!

    • http://www.BeyondDistance.com/ Kevin

      Thanks! I don’t have any serious injuries – just overtrained from time to time. I need to be careful and make sure not to go over my limit. I’m getting much better and stronger- February will be a lot more productive than January.