Spring 2026 Run Training

I am grateful that I can keep doing at least some sort of training and showing up to join my teammates week after week. More and more, my Satruday conversations involve talking with teammates who are entirely sidelined by troubling, painful knee, back, and assorted run-related injuries. 

According to Strava, year-to-date I have run 693 total kilometers. That works out to a meager 32 km per week—much less even than the 50-kilometers or so I have generally averaged during my second running life (2002-present). 

More than the limited volume, though, it’s the lack of quality interval sessions that has me worried. It feels like I’ve done so few classic vo2 max sessions over the past year, On several occasions, I’ve dropped out of the group track sessions entirely.

For a few months, I resorted to asking Gemini AI for training and recovery input. It consistently responded by telling me to rest my hamstring. Eventually, I decided that if I actually listened to the AI, I would just sit on the couch forever. So for now I have abandoned seeking input from algorithms.

It’s hard to gauge the exact fitness loss from this compromised stretch. Last week, I clocked a 19:21 for a 5k time trial, compared to an 18:51 roughly 13 months earlier in late April 2025, right before things seemed to go sideways. A 30-second drop feels significant on paper. Then again, the time trial a year ago was on an uncrowded Shin-Kiba track in pristine 17-degree temperatures where I pushed my own pace the whole way. Last week’s effort was in 24-degree warmth on a crowded track, sitting behind a pace group and relying on a late kick.

Here is a picture from the Shinjuku City Half Marathon. I signed up for this event purely to recapture the group spirit of pre-Covid racing in Tokyo, something I’ve missed. Most of the race itself felt terribly uncomfortable, but running through tunnel and on to track to finish inside the Olympic Stadium was glorious.

And, for the first time in years, I actually sit down and enjoy a post-race meal with my teammates afterward. So I am grateful.