Nothing much to report these last few days. I’ve been tapering off my workouts in the gym, and trying to get in as much track work as the weather will allow. I got a sprint/hurdle workout in on Wednesday and another one today. Today I just did hurdle drills, but Weds. I was going over them (2) at full height and close to full speed. I felt somewhat rusty, but since this was the first time Ive gone over a hurdle since I raced in August, that was expected.
The sudden influx of sprinting and working out on the hard surfaces has taken a toll on my legs. It rained all day yesterday so I decided to do some light intervals on the treadmill. I started my usual 5 minute warmup on a Lifecycle, and within 90 seconds my pulse was up around 110 bpm. A lot of times it won’t reach 100 by the 5 minute mark, so that’s a sure sign my body’s not happy.
I went ahead and put in a couple of miles, albeit at a slower pace than I was planning. My hope is that I can keep putting in some work for a few more days, and then pull the plug and take 4 or 5 days completely off before I compete. Hopefully the time off will give me a chance to recover, but at this point I really don’t know.
There’s a lot of sprinting in the heptathlon (60 meters, long jump, pole vault, 60 meter hurdles) and I really didn’t have time to prepare the way I would like. So I’ve been cramming as much as possible into these last two weeks. Whether the strategy works or not I won’t really know until I get ready to race. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the legs are going to be ready…otherwise it’s going to be a long, painful weekend.
Tomorrow the plan is to take my son to an all-comers meet over at UC Davis. I might throw the shot, but I’m guessing right now that I won’t try anything else. I don’t think I’ll be ready to do anything that requires running after doing hurdles this afternoon.
