Week 5 summary log

Week 5 has been so-so for me. I started the week with severe muscle soreness of my calves. They were so sore that they were screaming with each stride I took. The soreness is due to the trail-running that I did last Saturday, which consists lots of up-hill and down-hill running. Up-hill running, which is performed with concentric contraction of the leg muscles (ie the muscles contract as they shorten), typically produces immediate muscle soreness. Down-hill running on the other hand, is performed with eccentric contraction of the leg muscles (ie the muscles contract as they lengthen) and it typically produces delayed-onset muscle soreness. After a few days of resting, the muscles heal up nicely and become stronger than before. Hence, I could not do much running on Tuesday and Wednesday. My training did pick up slowly after that and I managed to do 60km this week. My aim is to hit 100km/week before I return to Malaysia on 18 September.

Tuesday - 6.9 km (35 minutes)
Wednesday - 7 km (30 minutes)
Thursday - 12.6 km (58 minutes) Over 530' elevation
Friday - 16 km (83 minutes) Over 931' elevation
Sunday - 18 km (95 minutes) Over 1011' elevation
Total - 60.5 km (301 minutes)
Average speed - 4.98 min/km or 7.96 min/mile