70 Minutes Easy, (10 Miles Approx.)
I went for a 70 minute long run in Thame today, running the middle 40 minutes as a pacemaker for my 'Old Man's' sub-40 10k bid. I paced him round to a P.B. of 39:44, (in a pair of Nike Air Perseus MkII's borrowed from the Bowerman Van, nice support shoes actually) which he was pleased as punch with. Things were not quite so rosy for me however. When I woke up in the morning, my lower back felt extremely tight, so much so I could feel it jar when I walked. I went for my run anyway, hoping it might loosen off, which it did during the run. Frustratingly though, my problems weren't just limited to that though (sadly!). My right knee had flared up from yesterday's race, so I was in a right sorry state. I got through the run, but my back tightened up even further afterwards.After the race I emailed Martin, telling him I needed to take an recovery week. All my niggles are lingering far too long of recent, and I'm picking them up far more easily. I'm taking this as an omen that I need to take it easy for a bit. Martin agreed, and advised me to either take complete rest week, or to jog every day for half an hour. Being as hopelessly addicted to aerobic activity as I am, I obviously chose the second option. So expect the next weeks training log content to be somewhat boring...
On a similar note, I had a chat with Chris Bradfield after the race, who made some observations about my training diary. He feels that I'm probably not allowing myself enough recovery after tough races (such as the Ridgeway), and that I'm not showing enough self-discipline in my track workouts, going at the early rep's too hard and thus slowing in later part of the sessions. I feel that he's probably right on both accounts, and I'm going to make efforts to rectify both situations upon my return to full training. The lack of recovery between hard bouts is probably what's making my niggles linger so long, so I will take my easier runs much, much easier. Futhermore, my lack of self-control in my track workouts is certainly resulting in lower quality workouts & may be also causing injury. This leads quite nicely onto a nice, verbose, soliloquy on the nature of life...
I think these two problems Chris highlighted may be caused by a complex interplay between four 'self' words. Self-discipline, self-esteem, self-analysis & self-expectation. I obviously lack self-discipline in my training, as shown by the way I approach track sessions, and also how my easy runs escalate in effort to quite strongly paced runs. The easy run 'escalation' probably results from low self-esteem, as I believe that my core speed is far lower than average, thus I try and compensate for this by training far harder than I believe my contemporarys are. Due to my too high levels of self-expectation, I feel I should be competitive with these contemporarys now, rather than over a longer time frame, resulting in me running my quality sessions too hard for my present level of fitness. This level of misdirected effort I'm putting into my training is almost certainly to blame for me picking up so many niggles. This injury acquisition rate may also be due to the lack of self-analysis I partake in. I should try and read my body more, and if I don't feel up to doing a run or a session at a certain time (which is exceedingly rare, to be fair), I should probably just rest till the next scheduled workout. Phew! Heavy stuff, that's certainly enough self-analysis for now. All I will say is that it all ties in quite nicely with what Chris had to say to me today, and my first point of correction will be to make sure all further easy runs are E A S Y . . . Show/Hide this post [+/-]
3 Comments:
Craig - don't forget self belief! It takes planning, patience and persistence, but you will progress given time.
Take it easy,
C.
Dammit! You mean I missed a chance to make it 5 self words...
I think you've hit the nail on the head there with your last two words mate, given time. Cheers for the input fella.
Just noticed, I could have got the 3 P's in there too!..
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