This was the first full fledged training week after the illness over the holidays. One of the few positive aspects of getting sick is that it reset my sleeping schedule, which is why I was able to do most of my runs early in the morning. The degree to which I feel like I’m in control of my training is pretty directly correlated to the degree to which I get out of the door by 7am. I’ll also be waking up at around 4am on the race day, so it doesn’t hurt to be in a similar schedule leading up to it.

Anyway, this was another 100K week that went by without any issues. It’s worth reiterating here that, before this block, I had never done a 100K week. It’s always surprising how quickly the body becomes accustomed to training. Similarly for the mind: at this point, 30K training runs feel routine and don’t raise any special feelings. Unfortunately, the accustomization works both ways: if you stop training, the body and mind will quickly detrain and you will face the frustrating task of getting used to the previous level of stimuli again.

Not in two weeks, though. While I was sick, one of the questions I thought about if it’d be challenging to do another high volume week afterwards. The answer turned out to be negative. In fact, this was probably the easiest loading week I’ve done so far. I suspect the reason is that the two missed weeks gave my legs a break and that the training intensity isn’t sufficient to reveal any lingering weaknesses in the aerobic front.