I am SO tired. Last week’s training was a tough, yet rewarding one. My coach decided against taking me to Wisconsin this coming week, so I am taking advantage of the extra training time to really get good, hard work in. As I mentioned last week, I ran with our True Freshman, Carolina, for the long run; it was tough at first, but my cardio felt great. Her pace is very similar to the pace I ran before my injuries, so I decided to continue running with her throughout the week. The runs are fast and I’ve been extremely sore, but I’ve noticed my shin pain has gone down a great deal. By upping the intensity of my runs, I strongly believe my cadence increased which in turn relieves stress from my shins. 

Workouts, on the other hand, have been a little back and forth. I’m still battling with some sort of block, but I believe it is a strength issue and brought weights back into my program. Since my next race will be PAC-12 Championships at the end of the month, I plan to get as strong as I can during this time. 

I’ll admit I am a bit mixed on my coach’s decision to not take me, but I know it is in the best interest of both the team and myself. I really do need this time to get stronger, and now that I am training harder, I am more tired than ever. Luckily, I know this fatigue is training induced and not any health issue like over the summer. Right now, the most important thing is to stay positive and work on any weaknesses physically as well as mentally. At this point, I do not feel as though I have the energy to compete, so I hope with time I will finally catch my fitness up. 

On to this week, I am ready to get some great training in! Yesterday’s long run was tough because my hip was extremely tight and I felt under the weather. In hopes of beating this bug, I took advantage of being alone and ran very easy. This week I will also have a great deal of time to train since I intended on going to Wisconsin and took work off, which will allow me to get steady cross-training in. I will definitely do my best to update my blog at least one more time during this week. Until next time!

Just Keep Running. XOXO 

Ashlee Powers