This is usually one of my busiest months at work. There’s a lot of stuff that has to be completed before the end of the year, and a lot that needs to be ready once January arrives. Add in the holidays and the cold, wet days and it can be hard to be as consistent with the workouts as I would like. Everything right now is just conditioning work, so it’s not the most exciting training to do either. So far I’ve been doing OK, but I’ve skipped a day here and there and cut some workouts shorter than usual.
My running workouts have been going well. I started a new 6-week cycle of interval runs today and ran four 800s @ 10.7 mph. I was a little more conservative in ratcheting up the intensity for this round; I feel like I’m slightly ahead of where I need to be, so I thought it might be good to stop pressing quite so hard. While that makes complete sense when I’m writing it down, it all seems to go out the window once I start running. It’s just so much more fulfilling to run better times that I usually end up pushing extremely hard.
My hamstring injury has been in a perpetual state of “medium” soreness lately. Unfortunately my rehab exercises and stretching are the first things to go when I shorten my workouts. I have been doing my elbow exercises regularly, and my forearms are much stronger than they were before. It’s been about two months since my cortisone injection, and I’m starting to get some feelings of discomfort now and then, but nothing serious. What I do feel seems to be in different locations than where it bothered me before, so hopefully it’s going to be alright.
My shoulder seems to be handling the push-press exercise I started doing, and my strength is steadily increasing. I would hit a wall with every other exercise I’ve tried before, so I am hoping that this one will be different. I an anxious to get out and throw the shot put to see where I stand. It would sure be nice to feel strong and throw without pain. If we get some decent weather I will try to get out and give it a test.
About a week ago after working legs I was doing some jumping drills and decided to do a quick test to measure my vertical. I went into the basketball court at HealthQuest and grabbed a volleyball-sized ball and tried to dunk it. I couldn’t quite get it done off of one leg, but was successful off of two. That’s an improvement from the last time I tried, so the leg workouts seem to be working. I did find out that getting my arm bent back when I came up short and hit the rim was quite painful, so I guess I better make sure I don’t miss any more!
I’ll probably try to get some video of that sometime soon. I’m also working on a new bar dips stunt, but i still have a way to go on that one. These things aren’t really important to my training and I don’t spend a lot of time on them, but they keep me amused and provide a break from the other more serious training.
Trample the Weak-Hurdle the Dead 