Friday 29th Aug 2008

BR, your crab scuttle remark remnds me of the time that two of the thread's finest hobbled across the carpark of a Barnsley curry house. Some advert for the benefits of high mileage, that was!

Gobi...you put across such a compelling and convincing case.  )  I'm convinced...but I reserve the right to throw up on your back, alter my decision there and then, and go back and run with Virgil if it gets ultra-messy (no disrespect to Virgil, but you know what I mean!!!).

Virgil - cheers. Just need it to last a few weeks more! Especially if Gobi's going to drag me round the streets of our city and through the parks I train in every week...

Oh, a pleasant enough 6.6 miles done at lunchtime in 49mins. And indeed it did confirm that my legs are heavy from circuits last night. Should be much improved tomorrow.

Scobos

NICE :~)

See you soon

Afternoon all,

clink:  the thought of you sitting outside on a cold day in your underwear with your hands and feet fully emersed in buckets of water seems to have lifted any trace of tractor induced existential angst

BR:  Be careful, cycling tended to make my PF worse.

Tom:  Glad things are looking up.  I'm mean spirited and envious regardless of whether I've got a fullblown condition or not. 

A brief history of Eric for newbies and absentees:
About 2.5 weeks before FLM, I had to bin a run due to bad shin pain.  It never improved and I ended up missing FLM and having six weeks of physio for a "calf strain" which had no effect whatsoever.  I finally managed to get the physio to refer me back to the Dr, and a bone scan revealed a tibial stress fracture, whom I christened "Eric" ( No releation to Bananaman ) .  After another 6 runningless weeks the Dr pronounced I'd made a "good, functional recovery", but wouldn't commit to my resuming running ( but I did anyway )  and recommended another scan in 5 weeks - which was yesterday.  So it's back to the Dr for the results on Monday when he'll hopefully give me the green light and Eric will be gone for good. 

Nice report from Mara Yamauchi

• What: 6m 
• Why:  grim fatalism
• Last Hard:  N/A
• Last Rest:  37 days

Have a good one! 

Morning all (still is here) from a warm and humid Virginia,

some entertaining banter today!

Clink, I hope you have a high hedge!

What: 90 mins steady turbo d&d, creating a huge pool of sweat under the bike due to aforesaid humidity; swim later if I can get to a pool.
Why: schedule - racing next weekend
Last hard: a while
Last rest: 19 Aug

I had a lovely surprising run yesterday - set off for an easy 75 mins, delighted in running in the rain, and came home with an average pace of 8.57. I did work a bit for the last two miles but still, it felt lovely and easy most of the time.

Good runnings all.

AF, hoping for the best mate

Mara link is a good read

NICE

Strange air of apathy around my sprint group last night. All clad in trackie bottoms, hoodies, gloves etc for the warm up. It's August FFS! Ok, I lie about the gloves, but still...

Walk lap and jog lap both completed in near silence, which is very unusual. I went through my twenty minutes worth of drills, as I always do but don't always mention. Then strides.

Session for the group was 400 - 300 - 200 -100 or something like that. Blocks and starts for me so I just did a 250 and 150 to loosen up. 250 was surprisingly alright. Goodish even. Have I mentioned how much I loathe and fear anything over 200 metres?

Sprinting is not a step out of the door and you're off sort of hobby. Last night as well as carting a leg-banging 6.5kg bag of blocks across town I also managed to have three changes of shoes: racing flats for warm up and drills, middle distance spikes for the two longer sprints and then sprint spikes to practice my starts.

I'm still improving with the blocks, but have not been confident enough to use them in a race this year. My plan is to be ready and happy with them by the Indoors - which for me will be around the end of Jan and Feb. I know I absolutely need a decent, explosive blocks start to get a really good 60m time. First attempt ever at this distance was earlier this year and ok, but disappointing as I know I can go under 10 seconds.

Main comments from P. yesterday were that I should concentrate on correcting/perfecting one little detail at once. A great start isn't picked up in a season - especially not by a novice V55. My 'set' position is great, I'm very flexible and have ace core stability (trumpet blowing ahoy) so no problems with balance or getting into a useful shape for the b of bang. So what's lacking? Oh surprise, surprise - confidence and power.

Power is work in progress, and P. has promised me more harness sessions and the like through the winter. I've promised to carry on with my step lunging - and hopping and jumping and skipping.

Confidence has been work in progress all my life. The specifics in this case involve moving my hands off the ground before I push my feet away from the blocks. We are talking about a tiny time delay - but fractions of a second are all important here. It's totally subconscious but lurking somewhere has to be an element of fear that I will fall over.

So a succession of "do this'', ''move that," "better!" and finally, "Good! Slight stumble on that one - but that's because you got it right..."

I will get there.

Nice one Sharkie

What are your winter training plans ?

Sharkie - great post, especially the bit about moving your hands before driving off.

AF - I didn't realise Eric was a stress fracture, I thought your problems were PF based. Anyway all the best for Monday

Evening

Sharkie - Agree great post

AF - Thanks for the link, very interesting

What: Serpies 5km
Why: Last Friday of the Month
Last Hard: Today

I had already decided i wasn't going to race this at full throttle, let it be a social race if such a thing exists this week has been an easy week, but can it really with 2 5km races within 5 days of each other since monday have run everyday but longest run has been 5km and will follow suit tomorrow and Sunday. Before starting winter training on monday really feel like a kid going back to school going into a different class with a different teach, its all exciting. Anyway back to today

5:06 148HR avg
5:19 160
5:19 166
5:26 168
5:11 169

26:22 finish time over a minute down on normal but will get back to normality soon

not entirely convinced my max is my max so not posting %s

Hi guys,

What - Rest

Why - Addaption (knackered)

Scobos - I agree with Gobi, if you can run 33 for 10K I reckon you can do a 72/73 half

BR - Look after that foot, want to see you toe the line at Chippenham

Run Stong! 

Greetings all,

What - 4m on the treadmill
Why - Contined recovery
Last Hard - Op
Last Rest N/A

Past 1200m for the year today so that has put a smile on my face, 500m more for for my years target.

Take care <><

Lovely technical posts over the past few days Sharkie, it's great to get a bit more of a spread between the 60m and the 60M peeps, and pleasing to see Tom back in the mix as well as the reported absence of Eric.

For me? I get this feeling that It won't involve any mileage today, but has involved a BBQ with the family. Interestingly stress free. It can't last.

I'll try some proper training tomorrow morning.

nice one RFJ - ahead of schedule for the year

another fascinating post Sharkie

AF - hopefully the streak will be up to 41 by Tuesday

Tom - nice to see you back, and hope you can soon get some serious mileage in once more.

what: 9.2 miles with some hills, steady pace
why: seems to be my usual Friday session now

last hard day: Wednesday
last rest day: Saturday

maybe I need some "adaptation" as well - not the most enjoyable of outings.
Legs felt a bit flat at the outset. No wind, but very sticky. Came out of the hilly/undulating part of the course (between approx 2.7 and 5.5 miles) with guts feeling dodgy. Despite which, I was by this point moving reasonably well, so managed to stay fairly relaxed, tried not to think about how far I still had to go, and in this manner made it home without need of emergency pit stops. Have had a bit of a tummyache since though.
Just wondering whether I might have picked up a mild bug as I had this sort of trouble on Wednesday as well.

Anyway, round in 63:14, which was only a minute or so down on what I'd have deemed a reasonable time for the effort level, so it wasn't all bad. Mean HR 154.

Evening all,

Have to fess up and admit I skipped my run tonight in favour of 30 mins on a jetski with Little Miss T.

Off home tomorrow so I'll make up the miles over the long weekend.

That sounds like fun Trini!

Clink - never had problem with circulation, except for one finger that I shut in the car door. When it is cold, all my fingers eventually warm up except that one. Guess I damaged the nerve.

I once saw an experiment on TV that had brown-eyed people and blue-eyed people, and they had to see how long they could keep their hands in ice-cold water. The blue-eyed people did the best. I guess the opposite is true for brown-eyed people, being able to stand the heat better than blue-eyed ones. I for one know I don't run well in the heat.

Tom - good to see you back - we all have to do as best we can with what we've got as frustrating as that might be. Good to see you still at it.

Sounds like there is some competition hotting up here on the forum.

What: 5 miles easy - out on the bush tracks back on the road. Been a long time since I've been on the bushtracks as it has been so wet, and the last time I slipped over, so I ran very carefully - and enjoyed it.

Good running everyone.