After reading dozens of ultrarunning forums and a couple books about how to train for 50 and/or 100 mile races, most people fall into one of two camps.
Camp A) Lowish mileage during the week and back to back long runs on the weekend.
Camp B) Consistently higher mileage during the week and one very long run on the weekend.
I'm tending right now toward Camp A and the B2B runs with a little more mileage than most people do during the week. This is not only because I enjoy running long on the trails all weekend, but I'm finding that I can recover pretty well between the two big runs and hopefully avoid injury. I think the single shot, super long runs take more out of me than I was previously willing to admit and it may have induced the recent peroneal and anterior tibialis ankle injuries. Well, long running and severe ankle instability.
These last two weekends, I've gotten in some solid B2B runs. On the first weekend of my first ever B2B weekend, I did 14 miles on Saturday + 22 on Sunday. The following weekend, I went 19 on Saturday (2 runs that day) + 21 miles of trails on Sunday. My legs were trashed after this training block, so although I knew I couldn't run an additional 30 miles at the end of Sunday's run (aka finish a 50 miler on that particular day), this kind of training feels like a good compromise between getting the mileage in and respecting that running this far is still very new to my legs. I need to respect them and where my fitness is really at, rather than where I think it is.
I'm struggling with my peroneal and anterior tibialis. I'm thinking its because I went to the 4mm heel-toe drop and its stretching my tendons a bit more than their used to, and increased miles. What are you doing to get over it? Have you stopped running? Icing after runs?
ReplyDeleteMy peroneal flares up the most when I'm increasing mileage and running on terrain that is unstable, like snow or mud, where my ankles need to constantly stabilize. Changing to a 4mm drop shoe where there is more pull on your calves on hills could also stress the peroneal. My solution has been to alternate the surface I'm running on. So if I run on unstable, hilly surfaces one day, then I won't run on those surfaces again until my peroneal has recovered. I also do more calf stretches after running. My favorites are illustrated here: http://www.tri-physiotherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/calf-stretches.jpg Icing can definitely help as well. Another peroneal specific stretch I use is here: http://shorefootandankle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/iso.gif I also foam roll the heck out of my calves to make sure they're loose before and after running. Hope this helps!
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