Training Log Archive: ebone

I warmed up for the PNTF Championships 5000m run at King's High School. I still had some breakfast sloshing around in my stomach, despite the fact that it had been over three hours since breakfast, and I felt a bit weak and tired. This is typical for not exercising much, then getting a good night's sleep after not getting enough sleep previously. It seems to put my body in a low-metabolic mode.

On the other hand, I was happy that my left hip felt fine.

I ran the 5000m run at the PNTF Champs. I felt good to start with, and the 77-78 second first lap felt very restrained, but I knew that it would be a tough effort to run my seed time of 16:40, after my weeks injured and not doing intervals.

As it turned out, I had one mile of credible running in my legs, and my performance substantially worsened after that point. I briefly considered quitting when my splits started getting ridiculous, but I reminded myself that I came to run a 5000m, even if it didn't go well.

My heart rate seemed quite low for much of the run, and I am suspicious of my recorded maximum readings (which supposedly came around half way through.) When I was pushing toward the end, my heart rate only reached 173, so I think it's likely that the earlier readings were anomalous, from the transmitter strap bouncing around.

Splits and avg/max heart rates:
77.6 149/167
82.9 167/168
79.8 168/170
79.4 169/171 5:20
81.7 171/173
82.1 169/170
82.8 170/177
84.7 170/178 10:51
87.1 169/175
86.9 168/169
87.6 169/175
86.4 168/171 16:39
39.9 171/173

During my warm-up, I had some tightness and soreness in my adductor muscles, and I wondered why, since I hadn't done anything strenuous. During the race, I had some fatigue/pain in various hip muscles (left adductor and right outer gluteus, I think), and a part of my lower back cramped after the race, as did my calves when I went up some stairs. I would guess these occurrences result from some muscles having atrophied while I was injured and exercising less.

It's hard to know what to make of a result like this. I would expect to be able to run around this time at any point during the year, regardless of what point of my training or rest cycle I was in, so it's depressing to run this slowly going into racing season. Maybe I should just chalk up 30 seconds of it to a bad day. I talked to Trisha for a while afterward. She had run 19:07, or something like that--not a good time for her. She said that people like us with a good training and racing background can get back our racing speed fairly quickly when coming back from a layoff. I hope she's right and that I'll race myself into shape over the next few weeks.

I went for a warm-down run with Uli Steidl, Ed Haywood, and Mark Mandi.

5K - Splits

Some biking while vetting the Port Orchard Street Scramble course.

I did numerous short bits of running interspersed with stops while vetting the U.S. Middle Champs controls at Moses Lake Sand Dunes. Fun stuff! I wished I had brought my mosquito repellent.

C • Mosquitoes... 3

I ran to 5 Corners to warm up for a hard run up the hill. My legs felt better than they had while running intermittently earlier in the day.

I ran hard from 5 Corners up 35th Ave NE to NE 62nd Street. I tired and slacked off just a bit over the second half after pushing quite hard through that point.

After taking a 1-minute walking break and measuring my recovery heart rate at 123, I jogged home.

I rode downtown, pushing moderately hard at times. My legs felt really good at the start of the ride...which is downhill...hmm. But seriously, my legs were strong to start with, then they fatigued a bit but still felt pretty good.

I rode home, taking the bike trail from the waterfront to Interbay, going to Fremont along Nickerson, stopping at ISB to say hi to Terry (but she had left already), riding to Baskin Robbins at 5 Corners, then riding home. My legs felt less energetic than they had on my earlier ride, and I also took it easier on the way back.

I jogged to the restroom and back before orienteering at Point Defiance. Today is a test of my left hip to see if I can run a course without aggravating it.

I ran course 4 at Point Defiance Park, going at an easy-to-moderate pace, as I hoped this would lessen the chance of aggravating my left hip flexor. My hip hurt a few times, but it never hurt much or for more than several seconds at once, so I think I was successful. I'll be curious to see how it feels tomorrow.

My legs felt good, I suppose from all the rest, although they felt somewhat fatigued toward the end, despite the eased-up pace. My calves were tight and sore again when I woke up, but they didn't bother me during the run.

I had a few controls where I lost significant time, a couple of which were my fault and a couple of which had more to do with the map being inaccurate or out-of-date. Jan set a nice course, with some route choices and very few bingoish controls, which is a noteworthy achievement at Point Defiance.