Training Log Archive: ebone

After the bit of a sore throat I had on the right side upon waking yesterday disappeared during the day, I nonetheless have a sore throat today, and I felt somewhat sick to my stomach again in the morning.

My left ankle/achilles doesn't feel particularly better or worse than it has for the past few days.

Even after running yesterday evening, my ankle feels better this morning than it did yesterday.

C • Woo hoo! 2

C • US champs in June 2010 3

I warmed up, mostly in the pre-start area, to run the second leg of the WOC relay. I didn't have quite as long warm-up as I would have liked, because taping my ankle delayed the start of my warm-up (thanks to salal for stepping in to do it for me), then the tape was too tight, and I took off my ankle chip, shoe and sock to cut it back some. The tape felt a bit awkward, but I didn't want to risk turning the ankle really hard and exacerbating the injury in a way that would compromise my performance.

After Ross had an outstanding run on the first leg, I ran second leg of the WOC relay, starting off with what seemed like an okay pace and technical performance, but then making a couple small mistakes, a few hesitations, and one large (at least 3-minute) error, at which point Mike Smith--who started 6 minutes behind me--caught me. I then took a poor route through some green and fell about half a minute behind, where I more or less stayed until I made a small mistake on the third to last control.

It was tough to run today--just an off-day physically I guess. My legs felt weak, I felt slightly hypoglycemic/light-headed, and I had to walk up too many of the hills in the second half of the course. It's frustrating to be running one of the couple most important races of the year and be running 10% slower than usual. It meant that instead of pulling up with the teams that Ross had finished just behind, I was struggling not to get passed by too many other runners. I was somewhat in disbelief but managed to mostly keep my head in what I was doing. I was able to mostly keep up with Pedro Nogueira who ran second for Portugal by navigating a bit more cleanly, until my ~20 second miss at the end.

I think 63 minutes would have been a fairly typical run for me, possible on a usual day if I could keep mistakes to around 2-3 minutes. I had at least 5 minutes today.

Ireland and Portugal beat us. But on the bright side, we did end up a few places ahead of Canada's team, thanks to a solid run by Eddie on the last leg, and the women did great today.

I didn't warm down after the race. I don't have any more WOC races to prepare for. Also, I just felt like sleeping, and I was too down to muster the motivation to do anything.

C • Hmmm. 4

C • Relay 3

I wanted to test my ankle, so I did a bit of running back and forth while watching the sprint qualification races. The ankle/achilles twinged every few steps, which was worrying. A more extensive run would be needed, anyway, so I tried to reserve my worry until after that.

I ran most of the way back to the University of Miskolc from the sprint venue. My ankle started out hurting a moderate amount, but after a few minutes, it hurt only a little, then the pain faded to a faint sensation, then it went away and I forgot about it. I stretched after the run while waiting to be picked up, and my flexibility was vastly improved by having warmed up.

After two days of rest, my legs felt pretty good, plus it was gently downhill for the first few miles. I hit the 3.2 mile mark of the run (a right turn) at 6:00/mile pace, and it felt quite easy. I realized by my stride rate and how good my legs felt that I must be going a bit fast, so I eased off some later in the run.

My left ankle/achilles feels somewhat better today--I can walk normally--so I'm optimistic about being in reasonable shape for the relay. I think I could run even if it hurt a lot, because it would probably feel okay after I got warmed up, but I just don't want to do any serious damage. Maybe Sandra can help me tape it really well.

C • Your World of O' Profile 2

Event: WOC 2009
 

My left achilles hurts more today, causing pain most of the time when I walk or even when sitting in a chair and dorsoflexing the ankle by putting my foot flat on the floor. It still does not hurt under load when partially extended.

I hope it heals enough that I can run the relay!

I warmed up for the WOC long distance qualification race. My legs felt surprisingly good, despite yesterday's hard effort. My mental state was initially a bit foggier, but I gave myself a pep talk and practiced thumbing the map and looking ahead during the warm-up, and doing those things seemed to put me in a good frame of mind.

I had a somewhat disappointing run in the long qualification race, starting with being slow to decide on a route to the far away first control. I ran fairly well once I got going, but then I missed #3. The remainder of the first loop (before the spectator control) went well, and I pushed hard for most of the loop and made myself a little sick to the stomach.

I had a miss on #10 (the 2nd control on the 2nd loop), and I injured my left achilles tendon or else some nearby connective tissue in my ankle when I slipped and skidded on my left foot as I slowed to punch the control. It took me several minutes to get more or less back to full speed. I then missed control #18, probably my biggest time loss after the ~1.5 to 2 minutes on the first control, and control #21, the second to last control.

I had too many mistakes, and in each case it was something small that easily could have gone differently.

On the physical side, my legs felt pretty good, but I kept finding myself running a bit too slowly when my legs were stinging with lactic acid, having to remind myself that I had another gear that I could use just by focusing on turning my legs over faster. This was effective, but only to the extent that I gave my attention to the running.

Things I'm pleased about:
=> I was successful in preparing for two hard races back-to-back.
=> I never gave up, even when things didn't go well.

C • More race analysis 4

I took a slow, limping warm-down jog after my race. I wasn't sure whether I should be running at all, since my left ankle/achilles hurt.