Man, I was tired yesterday. Fridays are usually a day off, with just a yoga class for movement. Yesterday there was no yoga because the studio is closed for the holidays, and I was glad. I was tired all Thursday night after that second run and it suck with me into Friday. I also had a moderate amount of Achilles pain. Now, I generally feel quite a few more aches and twinges on a day off (I think my body is under repairs on those days) but yesterday they felt ominous and disappointing. I was having one of those "I'm not going to be able to keep this up" days.
This morning I felt great. I went out for a speedy 11K with the VanRun club, and left the fast kids behind, with energy to spare. I guess that why we take days off.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Intervals
I gotta say, I just love intervals. They mix the fun of going fast with the easiness of going slow. This morning I switched it up a bit (in part because it's easy to do so on my new flat route) and instead of doing my long run pace (5:30 - 5:40/km) with 4:20/kms in between, I did a comfortable pace (5:00 - 5:15/km) with 4:30/kms in between. I like the fact that I am not completely letting go and flopping around in the spaces between the fast kilometers. Ultimately, I want to be able to sit comfortably at 4:30 all the time and I am wondering if just progressively tightening up the recovery pace might not be one way to get there.
This morning was 10 K and I will do another 11 tonight. I have been doing doubles for the past couple of weeks, but up to new I've just been doing 5 K in the morning, so this will be my first time with longer runs in both the am and pm. I'm curious to see how I feel. I definitely felt better (faster, more relaxed) coming at the evening run with 5K under the belt than I did just running the one evening run, but I may find that I lack freshness tonight.
--------
Follow up
I did lack freshness. I just did not have the pep to keep up with the fast kids. So it seems that, for now anyway, 10K intervals in the morning does not pair well with a negative-splits fast run in the evening.
This morning was 10 K and I will do another 11 tonight. I have been doing doubles for the past couple of weeks, but up to new I've just been doing 5 K in the morning, so this will be my first time with longer runs in both the am and pm. I'm curious to see how I feel. I definitely felt better (faster, more relaxed) coming at the evening run with 5K under the belt than I did just running the one evening run, but I may find that I lack freshness tonight.
--------
Follow up
I did lack freshness. I just did not have the pep to keep up with the fast kids. So it seems that, for now anyway, 10K intervals in the morning does not pair well with a negative-splits fast run in the evening.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Track in the rain
I bailed. What can I say, after a warm up and three 800s in the dumping, torrential rain, I pulled the plug, as did everyone else. Then, of course, it stopped. Should have kept going.
The Fat Trap
I thought this article in today's NY Times was interesting. The author looks at why people have so much trouble keeping weight off. I don't agree with all of the conclusions put forward because I don't think they go far enough toward explaining why people used to be skinny and are now fat, but I do agree with many of the observations.
I am glad to finally see in print that weight loss/gain is not governed by a simple mathematical formula. I have been making a determined effort to loose weight this year. I lost enough that I look slim, but since then I have been trying to push it down further, toward the bottom end of the healthy BMI, because it reduces injuries and makes me faster. I am currently at 150 lbs (with no clothes or glycogen) and I would like to be between 135 and 140. By the book, I eat about 1500 calories a day and burn an average of about 850 calories in running, so my net intake is about 650 calories a day. That should mean I have a calorie deficit of about 1200 a day, or 8400 a week. That means I am loosing about 2.4 pounds a week, right? Actually, it's about a half a pound a week. Often less.
I can accept that my numbers are probably wrong. I probably underestimate my caloric intake, but I doubt I'm off by a thousand calories a day. And Garmin probably overestimates my caloric output (though it has very precise input data to work with). What is more, the numbers all worked out just fine when I was loosing the first twenty pounds. Back then the scale lined up with what the Daily Plate predicted. So something changed (beyond the fact that I need less calories now than I did when I was heavier because there is less of me to move and to feed) and made all the clever formulas inaccurate. My body is doing more with less, so much more that it makes me wonder why it took so much to do so little in the past.
I am glad to finally see in print that weight loss/gain is not governed by a simple mathematical formula. I have been making a determined effort to loose weight this year. I lost enough that I look slim, but since then I have been trying to push it down further, toward the bottom end of the healthy BMI, because it reduces injuries and makes me faster. I am currently at 150 lbs (with no clothes or glycogen) and I would like to be between 135 and 140. By the book, I eat about 1500 calories a day and burn an average of about 850 calories in running, so my net intake is about 650 calories a day. That should mean I have a calorie deficit of about 1200 a day, or 8400 a week. That means I am loosing about 2.4 pounds a week, right? Actually, it's about a half a pound a week. Often less.
I can accept that my numbers are probably wrong. I probably underestimate my caloric intake, but I doubt I'm off by a thousand calories a day. And Garmin probably overestimates my caloric output (though it has very precise input data to work with). What is more, the numbers all worked out just fine when I was loosing the first twenty pounds. Back then the scale lined up with what the Daily Plate predicted. So something changed (beyond the fact that I need less calories now than I did when I was heavier because there is less of me to move and to feed) and made all the clever formulas inaccurate. My body is doing more with less, so much more that it makes me wonder why it took so much to do so little in the past.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Recovery
That's better. I went out today and felt fine. My pace was back to normal, and I even felt good enough to pick it up in the second half to bring the whole 10 km under 50 minutes (funny to think that was an unreached race target until late in the summer). No aches or pains to write home about, though my thighs were a bit tender for the first few kilometers.
I was also trying out my new running jacket and hat that I got from my thoughtful wife for Christmas. The jacket is yellow with lots of reflective striping for running at night and for running on the roads in the grey gloom that passes for daylight during Vancouver's winters. I'd asked for the jacket with hill running in mind. We usually run up and around Burnaby Mountain, which is a great workout, but a good chunk of it is running on the shoulder, without a sidewalk, so being visible is a good idea. I haven't been out there since the fall, and I miss it a lot, but I will start again in the New Year.
I ran a new route today. It's funny that I never set off that way before, because I have always known it was there. It's the Central Valley Greenway, and it passes right by my house. But when I first started running, one of my son's friends dad told me about the BC Parkway, and so that is what I always ran. It turns out that the CVG is flat and wide. It looks like it would be ideal for intervals and speed tests.
I was also trying out my new running jacket and hat that I got from my thoughtful wife for Christmas. The jacket is yellow with lots of reflective striping for running at night and for running on the roads in the grey gloom that passes for daylight during Vancouver's winters. I'd asked for the jacket with hill running in mind. We usually run up and around Burnaby Mountain, which is a great workout, but a good chunk of it is running on the shoulder, without a sidewalk, so being visible is a good idea. I haven't been out there since the fall, and I miss it a lot, but I will start again in the New Year.
I ran a new route today. It's funny that I never set off that way before, because I have always known it was there. It's the Central Valley Greenway, and it passes right by my house. But when I first started running, one of my son's friends dad told me about the BC Parkway, and so that is what I always ran. It turns out that the CVG is flat and wide. It looks like it would be ideal for intervals and speed tests.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Why so hard?
This morning was one of those times when it feels like the world is actively conspiring to keep me from running.
I was all psyched for a long long-run of 34K, which would be my longest to date. I had checked the weather forecast obsessively, and all the places I checked said the same thing: light rain (up to 1 mm/hour). In Vancouver, that's considered good running weather. When I woke up, it was raining a bit harder than that, but I got my running clothes out of the dryer and suited up all the same. Then I realized I was out of Gatorade mix. A long long-run with plain old water sounded like a poor idea, so I headed off to the supermarket. Closed (for Boxing Day). So I went to a different one. Got it. Now I was a good half hour behind schedule.
Having got everything together, I was about to go out the door again, when I realized I had forgotten to put on my heart monitor: unzip the jacket, remove the fuel belt, untuck the shirt, put on the monitor, retuck the shirt ... well you know the drill, not exactly the suffering of martyrs, but still. And then I open the door. It's pouring. This is no one-millimeter-per-hour sprinkle. This is borderline biblical. So I stand there for a long time. On one hand, I've had this run planned for weeks, and I don't want to let my schedule be ruined by wimpiness. On the other hand, I run for fun. And 34 K in heavy December rain doesn't look like fun.
Eventually, I wandered back to the computer and check if the weather was supposed to be nice tomorrow. No. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that. In fact, this morning's promised light rain was the best weather forecast for the rest of the winter. At this point it seemed to me that the universe did not want me to run a marathon at all. I said "oh, bother" (or words with a similar gist) and I opened up some work on the computer.
A half an hour later, the rain was back to a pitter-patter and I decided to go ahead and carpe the diem. As I was going to be running under the Skytrain the whole way, I made a deal with myself that, if at any point it looked like I was going to drown, I could get on a train with my tail between my legs.
No sooner was I out the door when I realized that I had once again forgotten my heart monitor. Tough. As it turned out, heart rate was not going to be the issue on this run. As I approached the traffic light at the bottom of the first gentle hill that takes me to the park, I checked my pace. I like to keep it between 5:30 and 5:40/km on long runs. That's a minute below race pace and feels pretty well as comfortable as walking. It's usually something like a 65% heart rate. But I have a tendency to start too fast, especially going down hill, so I checked my Garmin. 7:10. Huh? I stopped at the traffic light and put on my glasses. I must have messed up the settings. Did I switch it to imperial units, or turn it to indoor mode? No.
Assuming this had to be one of those random satellite problems that will sometimes result in pace readings like 2:14, I kept going, but I picked it up a bit all the same. Next light. 6:45. For the next five kilometers (after which I gave up switched my Garmin from displaying pace to only displaying distance) it was not much better. Never less than 6. I still can't explain it, other than by noting that I took the previous days off completely. I can't remember when I last took two days off in a row. And when I do take days off, I am usually doing yoga. This time I lay on the couch a read a book. Can two days of rest and some Christmas food really have done this to me?
I did not obsess about my pace and enjoyed the music on my iPhone. I was running to New Westminster, and the scenery is not wonderful for much of it. Especially on a dark wet December day. There was also a coffee evacuation issue. In keeping with the day's theme of crushing me like a bug, after a few slow kilometers I realized that I had forgotten to get rid of the last cup that I drank before heading out, and when I got the only toilet between my place and New Westminster, a sign was tacked to the door reading "Closed due to vandalism." That was at kilometer six, leaving a mere eleven kilometers to cover with a turgid bladder.
On the up side, it stopped raining. For most of my run there was no rain at all, other than a bit of drizzle for the last half hour or so. And having to use a bathroom in New Westminster gave me an excuse to go into a quayside pub and have a cup of coffee before heading back to Vancouver. Once I got home, I looked at the data and saw that my normal pace returned after about 8 km (though there were still some slow one's in there). I finished with an overall moving pace of 5:50. I'm not out to set any speed records on long runs, but it is still a bit weird.
The last five or six kilometers were kind of long and I did start to feel a bit of an ache in my thighs, but it was all basically fine. I was sore in my thighs for two or three hours after I got back, but that was about it. After a quick bath, I got back to work. I'm glad to see that there was no need for couch time. Basically, although I did feel it a bit more than the 29K, it's the same animal. It's more or less like a long hike, and I still imagine that the coming 38 and 42 will feel similar.
I was all psyched for a long long-run of 34K, which would be my longest to date. I had checked the weather forecast obsessively, and all the places I checked said the same thing: light rain (up to 1 mm/hour). In Vancouver, that's considered good running weather. When I woke up, it was raining a bit harder than that, but I got my running clothes out of the dryer and suited up all the same. Then I realized I was out of Gatorade mix. A long long-run with plain old water sounded like a poor idea, so I headed off to the supermarket. Closed (for Boxing Day). So I went to a different one. Got it. Now I was a good half hour behind schedule.
Having got everything together, I was about to go out the door again, when I realized I had forgotten to put on my heart monitor: unzip the jacket, remove the fuel belt, untuck the shirt, put on the monitor, retuck the shirt ... well you know the drill, not exactly the suffering of martyrs, but still. And then I open the door. It's pouring. This is no one-millimeter-per-hour sprinkle. This is borderline biblical. So I stand there for a long time. On one hand, I've had this run planned for weeks, and I don't want to let my schedule be ruined by wimpiness. On the other hand, I run for fun. And 34 K in heavy December rain doesn't look like fun.
Eventually, I wandered back to the computer and check if the weather was supposed to be nice tomorrow. No. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that. In fact, this morning's promised light rain was the best weather forecast for the rest of the winter. At this point it seemed to me that the universe did not want me to run a marathon at all. I said "oh, bother" (or words with a similar gist) and I opened up some work on the computer.
A half an hour later, the rain was back to a pitter-patter and I decided to go ahead and carpe the diem. As I was going to be running under the Skytrain the whole way, I made a deal with myself that, if at any point it looked like I was going to drown, I could get on a train with my tail between my legs.
No sooner was I out the door when I realized that I had once again forgotten my heart monitor. Tough. As it turned out, heart rate was not going to be the issue on this run. As I approached the traffic light at the bottom of the first gentle hill that takes me to the park, I checked my pace. I like to keep it between 5:30 and 5:40/km on long runs. That's a minute below race pace and feels pretty well as comfortable as walking. It's usually something like a 65% heart rate. But I have a tendency to start too fast, especially going down hill, so I checked my Garmin. 7:10. Huh? I stopped at the traffic light and put on my glasses. I must have messed up the settings. Did I switch it to imperial units, or turn it to indoor mode? No.
Assuming this had to be one of those random satellite problems that will sometimes result in pace readings like 2:14, I kept going, but I picked it up a bit all the same. Next light. 6:45. For the next five kilometers (after which I gave up switched my Garmin from displaying pace to only displaying distance) it was not much better. Never less than 6. I still can't explain it, other than by noting that I took the previous days off completely. I can't remember when I last took two days off in a row. And when I do take days off, I am usually doing yoga. This time I lay on the couch a read a book. Can two days of rest and some Christmas food really have done this to me?
I did not obsess about my pace and enjoyed the music on my iPhone. I was running to New Westminster, and the scenery is not wonderful for much of it. Especially on a dark wet December day. There was also a coffee evacuation issue. In keeping with the day's theme of crushing me like a bug, after a few slow kilometers I realized that I had forgotten to get rid of the last cup that I drank before heading out, and when I got the only toilet between my place and New Westminster, a sign was tacked to the door reading "Closed due to vandalism." That was at kilometer six, leaving a mere eleven kilometers to cover with a turgid bladder.
On the up side, it stopped raining. For most of my run there was no rain at all, other than a bit of drizzle for the last half hour or so. And having to use a bathroom in New Westminster gave me an excuse to go into a quayside pub and have a cup of coffee before heading back to Vancouver. Once I got home, I looked at the data and saw that my normal pace returned after about 8 km (though there were still some slow one's in there). I finished with an overall moving pace of 5:50. I'm not out to set any speed records on long runs, but it is still a bit weird.
The last five or six kilometers were kind of long and I did start to feel a bit of an ache in my thighs, but it was all basically fine. I was sore in my thighs for two or three hours after I got back, but that was about it. After a quick bath, I got back to work. I'm glad to see that there was no need for couch time. Basically, although I did feel it a bit more than the 29K, it's the same animal. It's more or less like a long hike, and I still imagine that the coming 38 and 42 will feel similar.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Year end totals
Everyone is counting up their millage for the end of the year. I have 1,977 logged (about 1350 in the last 5 months), but there were runs on which I forgot my Garmin (or forgot to turn on RunMeter on the iPhone in my pre-Garmin days) and the year is not over yet, so let just call it two thousand kilometers (or 2.12×10−10 light years).
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Time for a speed test
I had been planning to make an attempt at a new 10K time this weekend. My plan was to go out on Saturday morning and see if I couldn't take at least a minute, and possibly a minute and a half, or even 2 minutes off of my current time. That's kind of ambitious, but I do feel that I have been gaining speed recently, and it has been 2 months since I last made a serious try at a 10K training PR.
As it turns out, it is supposed to dump rain on Saturday morning. I don't feel like trying to set a PR in heavy December rain. The rain is supposed to at least slow down by the afternoon, but this is the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I would rather be at home, or picking up last-minute stocking stuffers.
So I have decided that I will run tomorrow (Friday) instead. Friday is usually a day off, but as I will be taking Saturday and Sunday off (Sunday being Christmas) I might as well run Friday. I will see if I can run at a sub 4:20 pace for the last 5K of a 10K run. There is quite a bit of downhill in those 5K, so it should not be too difficult, but at the same time I might get a new 5K PR.
--------Update-----------
Got the new PR in 20:59.7, which is really squeaking under, but it counts as a 5K time that starts with a two and a zero, and it's faster than I was expecting to get. Of course, there was 66 meters of elevation loss and though the stops at traffic lights did slow me down, they also gave me time to catch my breath. But considering I had run 45 km in previous three days, most of which was fast, I'm guessing I could repeat it on a flat course with taper.
As it turns out, it is supposed to dump rain on Saturday morning. I don't feel like trying to set a PR in heavy December rain. The rain is supposed to at least slow down by the afternoon, but this is the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I would rather be at home, or picking up last-minute stocking stuffers.
So I have decided that I will run tomorrow (Friday) instead. Friday is usually a day off, but as I will be taking Saturday and Sunday off (Sunday being Christmas) I might as well run Friday. I will see if I can run at a sub 4:20 pace for the last 5K of a 10K run. There is quite a bit of downhill in those 5K, so it should not be too difficult, but at the same time I might get a new 5K PR.
--------Update-----------
Got the new PR in 20:59.7, which is really squeaking under, but it counts as a 5K time that starts with a two and a zero, and it's faster than I was expecting to get. Of course, there was 66 meters of elevation loss and though the stops at traffic lights did slow me down, they also gave me time to catch my breath. But considering I had run 45 km in previous three days, most of which was fast, I'm guessing I could repeat it on a flat course with taper.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Injury Management
There probably are some people who run for years without any kind of injury, but I haven't met them yet. Of course, a lot of things depend on how you define injury, but I am going to call any noticeable pain or discomfort that lasts more than a couple of runs an injury.
I started running about a year and a half or two years ago with a major injury. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, in the first months, a big part of my motivation to run at all was curiosity to see if I could work through my injury.
I had run a bit ever since high school. By a bit, I mean that I would jog for two, three or four kilometers once or twice a week when I was really feeling motivated (which is to say a few months out of any given two or three year period). Sometimes I notice a bit on pain in my knee. In my early thirties, I started getting a lot more pain. (I guess I was running more at the time. We were living in Paris and had a baby, and I had a job with long, irregular hours. I needed the stress relieving benefits of exercise like a diabetic needs insulin.) The pain was always in my left knee, and in time it got so bad that I would just have to stop after a kilometer or less.
I saw a sports doctor, who told me that my knee was just wearing out. I could either stop running now, or tape it and stop running in a couple of years. By that point, he said, I would probably have permanently lost the ability to climb stairs without pain.
So I stopped. I took up rollerblading and cycled more. Fast forward fifteen years and I am in Vancouver, where I found I could run on steep mountain trails with no knee problems, but when I tried running on the flat, the thing swelled up to the size of a small football (yes, I know, footballs only come in one size). With a little research on the Net, I found that the issue was the difference in my foot strike on trails and flat land. So I switched to barefoot running. I'll save the details of my conversion for another post, but I will say that things weren't perfect as soon as I took my shoes off. It was better, but I still had quite a bit of swelling and some pain when running with bare feet. At that point, I didn't care. I just wanted to run, and if all I could manage was 5K, and if it meant a bit of pain, that was OK.
I did talk to my doctor about it. He sent me for an x-ray and, finding no big visible damage, told me that I shouldn't quit running, but rather run a bit less when I had a lot of pain. So I kept going, running in bare feet, icing my knee after each run, and taking ibuprofen. And as I did, things got better. Within weeks, or maybe a month at the outside, I was running my 5K without pain and I no longer needed ice or pills.
Since then, I've run a few half marathons and I am now training for my fist full, and along the way I've had a few other injuries. The biggest was iliotibial band syndrome (IT band). When that came, I followed the stern commandments to REST, REST, REST that one encounters everywhere on the Net, and spent a few weeks on the couch. Then I tried a short run. I was OK. So I tried a longer one and limped home like a pirate with a peg leg. I tried more rest and then, for some reason, I decided to risk going up the Grouse Grind. This is a very steep 850 m climb up the side of a local mountain. By the time I got to the top I felt great. So I did it again a couple of days later. Then I tried a run. Problem fixed. This lead me to think that what I needed was the right kind of movement to stretch and strengthen my legs. With a little googling I found a series of exercises that solved the problem permanently. Once again, it was activity, not rest that worked.
So, for me, the key to injury management is to identify the problem as soon as it starts (by which I mean, as soon as there is any discomfort that shows in a couple of runs) and do something about it. For example, I have a little mild discomfort in my Achilles at the moment. It started about a month ago. It doesn't hurt during the run, but sometimes there is an ache or a bit of soreness in some positions after a run. So I pay a lot of attention to how the area feels when I am running, and I'm mindful of landing and rolling forward without strain on that leg. I started a stretching routine for the Achilles. I started a progressive strengthening routine, and worked up to 3 set of 15 reps of two-legged heel lifts on the stairs, three times a day, then switched to one-legged lifts. So far, I'm up to 3 sets of 10 reps, one each leg, three times a day. I'll keep going until I can do all 270 lifts per day with perfect form and without discomfort. Then I'll keep a reduced number in my routine.
I also do yoga twice a week and visit my chiropractor when something feel out of balance or doesn't respond to changes in stride. In other words, rather than waiting until injuries become so bad that I can't run, and then waiting again for them to go away, I think of injuries as a natural part of my progression. As my body adapts and moves faster and further, it needs support to help it become stronger and more flexible. Injuries are trail markers on the path to the physical adaptations that are needed to reach the next level. When you see a trail marker, you don't stop, you adjust course and keep going.
I started running about a year and a half or two years ago with a major injury. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, in the first months, a big part of my motivation to run at all was curiosity to see if I could work through my injury.
I had run a bit ever since high school. By a bit, I mean that I would jog for two, three or four kilometers once or twice a week when I was really feeling motivated (which is to say a few months out of any given two or three year period). Sometimes I notice a bit on pain in my knee. In my early thirties, I started getting a lot more pain. (I guess I was running more at the time. We were living in Paris and had a baby, and I had a job with long, irregular hours. I needed the stress relieving benefits of exercise like a diabetic needs insulin.) The pain was always in my left knee, and in time it got so bad that I would just have to stop after a kilometer or less.
I saw a sports doctor, who told me that my knee was just wearing out. I could either stop running now, or tape it and stop running in a couple of years. By that point, he said, I would probably have permanently lost the ability to climb stairs without pain.
So I stopped. I took up rollerblading and cycled more. Fast forward fifteen years and I am in Vancouver, where I found I could run on steep mountain trails with no knee problems, but when I tried running on the flat, the thing swelled up to the size of a small football (yes, I know, footballs only come in one size). With a little research on the Net, I found that the issue was the difference in my foot strike on trails and flat land. So I switched to barefoot running. I'll save the details of my conversion for another post, but I will say that things weren't perfect as soon as I took my shoes off. It was better, but I still had quite a bit of swelling and some pain when running with bare feet. At that point, I didn't care. I just wanted to run, and if all I could manage was 5K, and if it meant a bit of pain, that was OK.
I did talk to my doctor about it. He sent me for an x-ray and, finding no big visible damage, told me that I shouldn't quit running, but rather run a bit less when I had a lot of pain. So I kept going, running in bare feet, icing my knee after each run, and taking ibuprofen. And as I did, things got better. Within weeks, or maybe a month at the outside, I was running my 5K without pain and I no longer needed ice or pills.
Since then, I've run a few half marathons and I am now training for my fist full, and along the way I've had a few other injuries. The biggest was iliotibial band syndrome (IT band). When that came, I followed the stern commandments to REST, REST, REST that one encounters everywhere on the Net, and spent a few weeks on the couch. Then I tried a short run. I was OK. So I tried a longer one and limped home like a pirate with a peg leg. I tried more rest and then, for some reason, I decided to risk going up the Grouse Grind. This is a very steep 850 m climb up the side of a local mountain. By the time I got to the top I felt great. So I did it again a couple of days later. Then I tried a run. Problem fixed. This lead me to think that what I needed was the right kind of movement to stretch and strengthen my legs. With a little googling I found a series of exercises that solved the problem permanently. Once again, it was activity, not rest that worked.
So, for me, the key to injury management is to identify the problem as soon as it starts (by which I mean, as soon as there is any discomfort that shows in a couple of runs) and do something about it. For example, I have a little mild discomfort in my Achilles at the moment. It started about a month ago. It doesn't hurt during the run, but sometimes there is an ache or a bit of soreness in some positions after a run. So I pay a lot of attention to how the area feels when I am running, and I'm mindful of landing and rolling forward without strain on that leg. I started a stretching routine for the Achilles. I started a progressive strengthening routine, and worked up to 3 set of 15 reps of two-legged heel lifts on the stairs, three times a day, then switched to one-legged lifts. So far, I'm up to 3 sets of 10 reps, one each leg, three times a day. I'll keep going until I can do all 270 lifts per day with perfect form and without discomfort. Then I'll keep a reduced number in my routine.
I also do yoga twice a week and visit my chiropractor when something feel out of balance or doesn't respond to changes in stride. In other words, rather than waiting until injuries become so bad that I can't run, and then waiting again for them to go away, I think of injuries as a natural part of my progression. As my body adapts and moves faster and further, it needs support to help it become stronger and more flexible. Injuries are trail markers on the path to the physical adaptations that are needed to reach the next level. When you see a trail marker, you don't stop, you adjust course and keep going.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Easy Week
This weekend was an Easy Week. Saturday worked out well, because there was the VanRun Foodbank fun run, which was 9.5 k. I did the first eight kind of fast (4:30 to 4:40/km) until I caught up with a friend who had started earlier than me, and then just cruised in at the end.
Today I went out with the same friend for a 20K. He has been off sick (running a few days a week at most) for a couple of months, so he needed a very easy long run. We really took it slow, so at times it felt like we might as well just walk, but in the end it turned out that we had averaged a 5:46/km pace. With such a slow run, I didn't feel even slightly tired or sore (though it did give me a good appetite for lunch). The funny thing that occurred to me after lunch was that the glacial pace we were running at, was only 11 seconds slower than my 10K race pace in April, and faster than any 10K training run I had managed to run up to that point.
Back in April, when I ran the Sun Run as my first race ever, I was hoping to get under one hour. I had never achieved that before. My best time was 62 minutes. I pushed as hard as I could and did it in 55 something, which was a 5:36 pace. I was so stoked. I was fast! Now the same pace for twice the distance seems to be, quite literally, a walk in the park. It's weird and wonderful to watch how the body changes.
Today I went out with the same friend for a 20K. He has been off sick (running a few days a week at most) for a couple of months, so he needed a very easy long run. We really took it slow, so at times it felt like we might as well just walk, but in the end it turned out that we had averaged a 5:46/km pace. With such a slow run, I didn't feel even slightly tired or sore (though it did give me a good appetite for lunch). The funny thing that occurred to me after lunch was that the glacial pace we were running at, was only 11 seconds slower than my 10K race pace in April, and faster than any 10K training run I had managed to run up to that point.
Back in April, when I ran the Sun Run as my first race ever, I was hoping to get under one hour. I had never achieved that before. My best time was 62 minutes. I pushed as hard as I could and did it in 55 something, which was a 5:36 pace. I was so stoked. I was fast! Now the same pace for twice the distance seems to be, quite literally, a walk in the park. It's weird and wonderful to watch how the body changes.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Keeping it up
I had a good Thursday night run with VanRun. I was happy to see that I could pick up the pace and sit around the 4:30/km pace. I was actually running a few seconds slower than that, but I was satisfied because I did not feel stressed at that pace. I was having to make a conscious effort to keep the pace up, and I know I let out a couple of grunts, but I was still able to hold a conversation. Interestingly, my heart rate was quite high for the whole thing -- all of it over 170 and quite a bit in the 180s. When I was running my 4:40/km 15 km attempt, I was running a bit slower and my heart rate was lower (all at a steady 175/176) but it felt harder. And though my steady 15 km at 4:46-4:53 never got over a heart rate of 172, it felt harder.
Of course, this was a shorter run (or at least the fast part was) but I would have expected a higher heart rate to feel harder, no matter what. I guess that is not the case.
I was going to run today, but Christmas shopping got in the way. I did go to yoga, and got my feet down in downward dog.
Of course, this was a shorter run (or at least the fast part was) but I would have expected a higher heart rate to feel harder, no matter what. I guess that is not the case.
I was going to run today, but Christmas shopping got in the way. I did go to yoga, and got my feet down in downward dog.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
PRR
Great run with the Pacific Road Runners tonight. Those guys really get going, and I am not even running with the fast group.
I had one of the those way-too-busy days, with piles of work, and errands, and phone calls, which just left me wanting to tell the world to go away and leave me alone. And I wasn't even looking forward to the run. It had morphed into something else I had to do. Plus the day off yesterday had left me feeling kind of stiff today, with a little bit of soreness starting to appear in my Achilles that had been gone after my long run on Sunday.
But then I got out there, and after the warm up, and after the first faster km, it started to feel good. And as we went further and faster it felt great. I'm bummed out that I forgot to wear my heart monitor, because it did not feel like work tonight, and I'd be curious to know if the numbers lined up with that.
After having to push so hard to maintain pace in the last 5 k of my 15 k run on Saturday, where I was only doing 4:46 to 4:54 minute kms, I was starting to wonder if 4:30 would ever feel natural. Tonight I felt like I could have kept running between 4:30 and 4:45 forever. I think that, if I am really going to own this thing, I am going to have to start exploring the territory on the other side of 4:30.
I had one of the those way-too-busy days, with piles of work, and errands, and phone calls, which just left me wanting to tell the world to go away and leave me alone. And I wasn't even looking forward to the run. It had morphed into something else I had to do. Plus the day off yesterday had left me feeling kind of stiff today, with a little bit of soreness starting to appear in my Achilles that had been gone after my long run on Sunday.
But then I got out there, and after the warm up, and after the first faster km, it started to feel good. And as we went further and faster it felt great. I'm bummed out that I forgot to wear my heart monitor, because it did not feel like work tonight, and I'd be curious to know if the numbers lined up with that.
After having to push so hard to maintain pace in the last 5 k of my 15 k run on Saturday, where I was only doing 4:46 to 4:54 minute kms, I was starting to wonder if 4:30 would ever feel natural. Tonight I felt like I could have kept running between 4:30 and 4:45 forever. I think that, if I am really going to own this thing, I am going to have to start exploring the territory on the other side of 4:30.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
First 29 km
Did my first 29 km today. That's not really an amazing feat, as I had run 28 km a couple of months ago. I took it slow, running most of it at a 5:30/km pace, but with hill and stops, averaging a 5:40/km pace.
I was glad to find that I didn't get sore (other than an incipient blister on the bottom of my right foot, which got prompt blister-band-aid treatment mid run) and I wasn't particularly tiered. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself not to pick up the pace in the last few kms.
I am a bit sleepy-tiered now, but it's at a level where I am working, but not really 100% on my game, and not at a level where I have to take a nap on the couch. A year ago, even 12 or 15 km would have me sleeping on the couch for a couple of hours and hobbling around like an old man.
The body adapts.
I was glad to find that I didn't get sore (other than an incipient blister on the bottom of my right foot, which got prompt blister-band-aid treatment mid run) and I wasn't particularly tiered. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself not to pick up the pace in the last few kms.
I am a bit sleepy-tiered now, but it's at a level where I am working, but not really 100% on my game, and not at a level where I have to take a nap on the couch. A year ago, even 12 or 15 km would have me sleeping on the couch for a couple of hours and hobbling around like an old man.
The body adapts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)