I have intended, at various times, to write about what I have done, am doing, might do--and I have of course done none of those things, for various reasons.
I do have some thoughts, though, which are not terribly organized, but I will share now, because I'm bored at work, and have done enough to feel this is not a terrible dereliction of duty.
--My ankle is fine now. It would be cool to isolate a variable here, and say "This is the fix." I've done several things, however. 1) Barefoot single-leg balancing, every morning and every night. I'm awful at it, but less awful than I was. That's probably something. 2) Keeping easy runs no longer than 10 miles, and usually only 40-60 minutes. I've a tendency to gravitate towards everything being medium long, medium effort, when left to my own devices. (Yes, the classic recreational runner problem. We are all unique in the same ways.) That's not great, except, maybe, for what some folks might call base building.
--I'd argue, however, that it's probably not optimal for that either. (Once you can tolerate frequent, steady running, at least.) Or rather, I wouldn't argue it, because people get fanatical about such things. But it strikes me that--especially for those runners who, like me, don't have a real athletic background to draw on--all paces are "basic"--or, to borrow from Canova, fundamental.
--To that end, my volume is a bit lower, though I don't ever count it. Probably 55 or 60 miles a week, instead of 70-80. But, I'm doing bits of mile, 5-10K, half-full marathon pace work every week, plus some strides and true sprints. My long run is only 90-120 minutes. Perhaps that sounds like more of a sharpening phase, but I'm only really dabbling in all of it. It's all a little hard--but only a little--I'm not tasting copper twice a week. This is, again, perhaps a bit Canova-by-way-of-Magness, in the "never leave anything behind" sense. There is no race in which it's better to be weak and slow, so I'm trying to improve all those things, at least a little. I'm willing to be patient.
--Speaking of patience: I don't think I could race a good marathon or ultra off of this, so I'm not going to try. I'd like to get stronger, faster, etc., before trying again. Maybe that will be this fall, maybe it will be never. I'm honestly not concerned. I've completed 14 marathons/ultras, (I think, although can't recall, which should tell you something) so I'm not interested in limping across another finish line. For everything but the 100, that's done. I'd like to go a bit faster, in the meantime. If I can't race it, I'm not interested.
--I should say, also, that I'm enjoying this quite a bit. I'm not fast enough for people that make socks to give me free things, so this is really all that matters.
--I've done a few harder runs which make me thing this is all working pretty well.
