Harvest Moon - Post Race Report

It's been a month since Harvest Moon and I've had a lot of time to reflect on what when wrong. The first thing that was wrong was the mental game. I don't know exactly what it was but I think all the solo racing just played on my mind too much. Racings a lot of fun but it's always been more fun when it's with friends. The sharing in the struggle and accomplishments make the day much more fun. For 2013, I've got to either talk my friends into more races or make more friends at the races. Either way, I've got to put the fun back into the race.

The second thing that went wrong has to be run training. Prior to Harvest Moon, I spent some time trail running in Durango. While it was fun, it was a lot harder than my normal running with lots of steep ascents and descents. I think this put a lot of stress on my calves and I didn't give them time to adjust and recover.

The last thing that went wrong was the cycling. When I returned from Durango I did back-to-back seventy mile rides. Prior to that my previous long ride was near forty and it wasn't back-to-back. While the long rides were fun, they put too much strain on already tired legs. It was definitely a violation of the ten percent rule.

As a result of the two training errors, what I thought on race day was a cramp was probably a grade two strain of the soleus. It's been four weeks and I'm barely able to run three miles without pain and that's after three weeks of no running. It also cost me two races, Crescent Moon and Panerathon, both of which I really like doing.

Next year, leason learned. Keep the training increases reasonable and stay within the plan. When I have spare time, take a longer nap, not a longer ride.