Training Log Archive: carbon

While Mike chose to do another long run today, I decided to nurse my body and be more gentle to it by doing a bike spin. I feel a bit stiff and sore in my hips, although not in an injury kind of way. More in a tired way. It was mostly an E2 spin with a few E3 and E4 spin-ups while watching a TV show. My lower body felt much better after and I managed a good stretch and roll too.

Sugar Mama-Strange Brew-Boundary Ridge-Ranger Summit-Strange Brew-Boundary Ridge-Snagmore.

The group was quicker pace than I'm ready for. Would have liked a slower start, but half the group wasn't planning to run as long so they could affort the speedier run. They had to do a bit of waiting for me to catch up (all have years of ultrarunning behind them). I should have stopped at 3hrs since after that I started feeling discomforts. I will step it back to 3hrs for my next couple of long runs and progress more slowly. CO wanted 3.5hrs and I tagged along. The way the loops worked out I didn't have any other good choices to get back anyway.

C • Vasaloppet 3

Knee still feels good this morning. No pain. We'll see on the up and downhill running tomorrow.

Usual.

Quite happy with tonight's session. First ride in a long time without knee pain. My lower back has been stuck and that has caused all these weird issues and now that it's unstuck I'm so much better! Tough class tonight with 21 minutes of MAP, lots of E4 and E3.

Had a good session again this morning. One of my frustrations in last night’s run was that I felt like I was spending way too much energy on trying to run properly. I was trying to put all the pieces together and I wanted to feel what I felt in my Monday morning session but it just didn't happen. I stopped on any flat section and did my drills in an attempt to relax myself and get in the right groove, but it didn't help much. My biggest struggle was on the up hills. I know I need to bring my back foot up a little higher and use my hips a bit more and I can do that on the flats and downhill better now but the ups are really hard. This morning I practised the uphill running a lot on the treadmill. Llew managed to spot what I’m doing wrong and I can feel and see it too but I’m not fully able to correct it. I’m now running backwards on the treadmill in order to correct my forward running. When you run backwards you are forced to do it right or you would fall (in theory anyway because I managed to do it incorrectly the first time). As much as I can from now on, I’m supposed to run a hill both forwards and backwards.

Physio saves the day yet again. I feel a whole lot better than last night! I'll take it easy tonight and let the treatment settle before going out to mess myself up again.

Set out to run 2hrs but had a very crappy run with all kinds of frustrations gso I cut it short. Then I spend 90 minutes in the car waiting for CO. While I was waiting I played the stereo and drained our car battery (a less than a smart move). When CO got back I was so frozen that I could barely move. CO added 15 minutes to his already long run to go fetch his work vehicle so we could boots the battery that I drained.

C • Some days... 2

Oh, yeah! Good session today. Did well in several exercises that I have struggled with in the past (like the one where you put one leg up on a bosu ball behind you and the other in a lunge position, then while holding 20Ibs in each hand you jump with your front leg and push off and land on full foot - I could do this fast and low today). I'm getting stronger for sure. And best of all, my hips were really engaging in the fast feet alternate drill. I now need to translate that into my outdoor running. It will make a big difference in how relaxed I feel. I was totally just going with the flow today. That's how it's supposed to feel outside too, but I'm not quite there yet.

C • Fast feet drill 8

Practising some technique that I felt was clicking this morning. The wind felt brutally cold even though it was just a few degrees below zero.

More of the same.

E2 spin to get the legs fleshed out.