Friday 19th June 2009

Evening,

Rather a long time since I was on here - I don't like it when life interferes with running!

Happy Birthday, Pammie!

What: 6.6M
Why: first run since Monday (busy week)
Last hard: forgotten
Last rest: most of this week

Today's run was a weird one.  Set off at a nice gentle pace.  Then, after about 0.25M saw a couple of friends just setting off about 0.25M ahead of me.  Ran rather quicker than planned for the next 0.5M or so to catch them up (clocked 6.50 for first mile instead of planned 8.30 or so, which is quick when you've done the first quarter slowly).  Then ran slowly with aforementioned friends (their normal pace is about 8.50).  Then ran a further mile or so after they had finished but upped the pace.  So, a real mixture!  Enjoyed it, though.

Take care...

Mava/ TMR,

Thanks for the words. Ive already been doing the knee up across the body stretch and it seems to hit the spot. My wife and 6 year old daughter have just been looking at my new strectch (TMR's) worryingly - they think i'm gone slightly mad with all these strange positions!!. It does looks strange, although basically the same thing but lying on your front rather than back, with the ankle twist - the ankle twist doesnt give any additional feeling in the area leading me to think its the Glute rather than the Piri.

I notice in the article that it is supposed to hurt going up stairs - thats when i do feel it. I'm not sure whether it's the glutes or the piri. I'll keep stretching and hope it gets better soon, otherwise its off to see a fizz. But as i say, i'm hoping its not too bad as it's a "feeling" rather than a "pain". I dont want to make it worse tho.

I hope this doesn't go on too long. I'm a real pain in when I cant run.

Thanks again 

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Happy birthday Pammie.

TMR - I always thought that you did that stretch lying on your back. The muscles on that man!

What: 4 miles with 10 strideouts.

Why: To get faster.

What happened: felt fine while I was doing them although I could feel a pull in my right calf. Had a very sore foot all afternoon!

Good running everyone.

I find I get a much better stretch face down because the stretch increases as you sink your body weight into it, which is easier than pulling the foot up or across.  I didn't read the article, as I'd just googled piriformis stretch looking for the one I wanted, and didn't notice anything about the foot, and I actually bring the foot underneath much higher up, so it is level or higher than my waist. And you can easily alter the exact angle of the stretch by how far to the side you lean your bum

A litttle bit more googling and I've found these two partic the first is very clear, but NZC, I'm surprised how many   more sites have the one lying on your back.

http://mcr.coreconcepts.com.sg/glutes-and-piriformis-stretch/

http://jaxmed.com/massage/pirformis_stretches.htm   (Piriformis and psoas stretch neart the bottom of the page)

Evening all.

What:  5 x 800m off 90 secs
Why:  Couldn't manage the full 8!

Pretty poor really, 3:09-3:15 reps, could do 10 or so when in marathon training so 8 wasn't a big ask but legs were empty 300m into no.6 so I called it a day.  Shows where my current weakness is - sustained pace - but I'm sure it will come back.

Shortish hilly run planned for tomorrow.

lol @ the other 39 cakes 40mins On the bright side with your reps, at least you were sensible enough to not push yourself over the edge. Stuff like that will come back quickly as you get back into it more!

DD - sounds like a hard run in the South Downs for you. Not surprised your legs were still mashed after Comrades.

mava - basically the doc says I got what is known as traveller's tummy. In my case most likely caused by the chlorinated water. I forgot to take the Aloe Vera with me, but have been using it since I got back and think it is primarily responsible for the improvement so far. Your job sounds like something friends of mine are going through - they're constantly being reinterviewed for their jobs everytime a round of redundancies comes up. Not nice!

Paddy - hope the stretches clear up. Cheers for the advice re: Dublin. I've already been told I have to go and specifically register with the AAI at the Expo after picking up my number, so that should take care of that. All my running is aerobic at the mo, but even within that I run to effort, rather than pace, so where necessary the pace drops accordingly which should keep things from worsening.

For those of you who may be interested, this is the leg of the Ridgeway Relay: http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-kingdom/swindon/881912770219 you can click elevation under the details on the right-hand side to see the profile. Trust me though, it's a hell of a lot worse than it looks.

First steady run of the campaign this pm went ok. Aside from the tummy probs, the stitching has started to come out on one of my trainers, which resulted in a rather unpleasant gouge to my foot (resulting in slightly more painful running). A relatively hilly 10m in the middle of 14m in 60:43. Probably closer to 90% than 80% effort, but given the quick return to high mileage and it being first week back, plus the probs, etc, I'm not unhappy with it.

Good luck to any racers at the weekend.