Wisconsin or Bust?

I think I’m going to give the heptathlon a shot if everything works out over the next few days.  Threw the shot yesterday (38′ standing with the 12#) and did a few hurdle drills.  It looks like rain tomorrow, so today I practiced carrying and running with the vaulting pole, ran some approaches for high jump, and hurdled some more.  The next two weeks are going to be like an extended cram session.

Out of everything I do, I think that I enjoy practicing hurdles the most.  There’s just something about the rhythm and the immediate feedback you get when you’re doing it right.  I just wish it didn’t tear my hamstring up so badly.  After two straight days of hurdles it’s pretty tender right now.  Hopefully it will improve with a day off from sprinting tomorrow.

If we get some decent weather I think I can probably find an all-comers meet somewhere nearby and can give the pole vault a try with some standards up.  Ten feet doesn’t look that high, and if I can hit that I wouldn’t lose much ground to anyone.

Did a back workout at HealthQuest this morning, then finished off with three miles on the treadmill tonight.  Should sleep well tonight.

December Doldrums

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.

Training Videos

I got into HealthQuest a little early today and shot some video.  First up is the exercise that I’ve been doing to get my upper body stronger for throwing the shot put.  I’m using a leg machine, but I think it really comes close to mimicking the arm angles you use when you throw…the hand is in next to your jaw, the palm is up, and the elbow is out.  The best thing about it for me is that I can do it without any pain in my shoulder.  The pressing motion usually doesn’t bother me much, but with free weights I always get into trouble when I’m picking them up or putting them down.  This keeps me locked into the pressing motion:

I also went ahead and filmed a couple of other exercises I’ve been doing.    The first one is a modified pull-up, and having a strong back is one of the requirements of pole vaulting:

The next one is a core exercise that hits just about everything, the abs, the obliques, and the lower back:

I finished the morning off by running four 800 meter intervals on the treadmill.  I ran them at the same speed as last time (10.5 mph) but I was able to reduce my rest periods between the runs by 1-2 minutes.  I was able to finish all of these on 3 minutes rest.  Tomorrow will be a leg day with some light cardio, and that will wrap up the month of November.

The Clydesdale Runs

Runners come in two distinct models.  There are the ripped, muscular sprinters that generally run 400 meters or less, and then there are the waif-thin endurance specialists that dominate anything of a mile or more.  There are obvious physiological advantages that come into play here, and no amount of training is going to completely over-ride the capabilities that are hard-wired into our genetics.  Hence a superbly trained muscular guy like Lance Armstrong struggles to finish a 3-hour marathon.

In endurance sport circles the big guys are jokingly referred to as “Clydesdales”, and many races have separate divisions and awards for these larger entrants.   There is no official definition of this weight class, but it’s generally in the 175-195 pound range.  To get an idea how thin most endurance athletes are, in some races the Clyde division starts at just 165 pounds for men, and 135 pounds for the women (aka Fillys or Athenas).

While the exact weight of a Clydesdale may be subject to debate, the term very clearly tells you all you need to know about large runners.   They’re better equipped to be towing wagons than running fast for long distances.  You’ll get no argument on this point from me.  For as long as I can remember I have loved anything strength related (sprinting, jumping, weightlifting) but loathed those occasions where I had to push myself for longer periods of time. 

I think that I can remember just about every long run (more than a few hundred yards) I ever had as a kid.  Most were timed runs in PE class, and the pain and misery made a lasting impression.  I have a vivid recollection of struggling in high school to finish a one-mile run in under 6 minutes (I barely missed), and this was when I was on the track team.  Yes, I was definitely a sprinter and field event guy.  In my two years of Varsity track the longest I ever ran in training was one lap— 440 yards—and I only did that one time!  I always managed to hide whenever the running got serious.

Fast-forward 30+ years, and I’m competing again, but now it’s in masters track & field competitions.  I’ve decided that the multi-events (pentathlon, decathlon, heptathlon) are going to be my strong suit, but there’s a problem.  There’s always one distance race included in the multis.  Indoors it’s the 1000 meters, and outdoors it’s the 15oo.  So that means my days of hiding were over…I was going to have to start doing some intense running workouts… the dreaded speed intervals. 

I’ve written about these runs on multiple occasions.  They’re tough, they hurt, but they do the job and help me to maintain my speed over a longer distance.  In the past most of these runs have been in the 400-1200 meter range.  However this fall I decided to increase the volume of my workouts and to stretch the distance of my longer intervals up to a mile.  As these mile times began to drop I remembered back to my high school days and started thinking about giving that sub-6 minute mile another shot.  I’d actually gotten down as low as 6:07 last year, so I knew if I put my mind to it I could do it.  Then late last month I happened across this blog post that challenged readers to set goals for November.  So that’s when I wrote it down and got serious about breaking that barrier.

Now I know that for just about any average “runner” a 6 minute mile is nothing more than a warm-up.  But for me, 51 years old, 185 pounds, and with lungs I swear must be the size of walnuts, it’s a big deal.  Just getting to the point where I can think about attempting it has taken many months of intense training.   And if I can get it done, it means I’m more fit cardiovascularly than I’ve ever been in my life.   That’s huge in my book. 

Today is Thanksgiving, and a few days ago I tentatively selected this as the day I would make my attempt on the record.  I figured that if something went wrong  I would have a few more days to give it another shot before the end of the month.  I ran some  500 meter intervals on Monday, did an easy 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical on Tuesday, and took the day off yesterday.  I woke up this morning feeling rested and strong, headed into HealthQuest, then spent the first couple of hours getting some work done and getting myself mentally prepared for the assault.  I knew I could get through the first 3 laps (our treads can display a 400m track) without too much trouble, but the last lap worried me.  Even if I was successful it could very well prove to be a miserable, painful experience.  And failure would be all that and depressing too.

Finally around 10am I got warmed up and decided to go for it.  My plan was to go at a steady pace (10mph) for the first 15oo meters, then if all went well I would bump it up a notch for the last 100 to make sure I came in at under 6 minutes.  So off I went.  At the halfway mark I was still feeling remarkably relaxed and my confidence started to build.  After 1200  meters I knew I had it in the bag.  I’ve run enough laps now to know how much I have left in the tank, and I was sure that I had plenty.  Just as planned I kicked up my pace for the last 100 meters and cruised across the finish line in 5:57.  I immediately hit the “pause” button, caught my breath, then grabbed my camera to document my accomplishment.

While it was a hard run, I definitely didn’t push as hard as I have in some of my previous training runs.  In fact after a short rest I was able to run two additional 1000 meter intervals at 9.5 mph.  And while it felt great to finally break that 6 minute barrier, I think the best part was that I was able to do it without killing myself.  I don’t think it took any more out of me then any other hard workout, and I’m pretty sure that tomorrow I can just fall right back into my regular training routine.

It’s also more evidence that I’m further along in my training than I was last year at this time.   I guess that’s the one positive about being so slow when I started my training.  I can continue to get faster even though I’m getting older.  That’s always a nice boost for the confidence.

November has been a good training month for me and I’m feeling pretty darn happy with the direction I’m heading.  Writing down some short-term goals was the key that got me re-focused and re-energized.   Thanks Maria for that reminder!

A Brief Setback

Things were a little rough at the beginning of the week, but I was pretty sure I knew why….the long run I took last Sunday.   Leaving my comfy treadmill deck at HealthQuest for the hard streets probably wouldn’t have made that much of a difference if I’d kept it short.  But pushing myself to go for a full hour was overdoing it.  So I took Monday completely off, tried an easy run on Tuesday (still didn’t feel very good) and then gave myself a test on Wednesday.   I was scheduled to run some mile intervals, and decided to push the first one up to 9.7 mph to get a guage as to how close to my November goal (run a sub-6:00 mile) of 10 mph I was. 

I’d run 1.25 miles at 9.5mph a few weeks ago, so this shouldn’t have been that difficult….but it was.  Halfway into it I knew I wasn’t going to make it; I ended up taking short rests on each of the last two laps.  I did not feel good at all, but I finished up the workout as best I could.  I tried to convince myself that the after-effects of the long run were to blame, but it’s always disheartening to have such a poor performance.  Fortunately my next scheduled workout was 400 intervals, and that’s becoming one of my favorites.  So I would have a chance to redeem myself.

I had tweaked this workout a little bit, cutting my rest intervals by 30 seconds (to 2:30) and opting to run for 90 seconds instead of 400 meters.  So at my 11.5 mph pace I would actually be running for about 10 seconds beyond the 400 finish line.  I eased my way into it, running the first at 10.5, the second at 11.0, and then proceeded to finish the workout with six more at 11.5 mph.  The last couple were tough but managable.  That was more like it! 

Today’s workout was four 800s.  When I last did this workout a couple of weeks ago my pace was 10.3, 10.5, 10.2, and 10.0.  I started at 10.5 today, felt good and strong, and was able to maintain that pace on all three of the next intervals.  Again the last two were pretty tough, but I was able to push through and finish them cleanly.  In looking back at my middle distance workouts from last year at this time, I show two different days where I attempted to run just two 800s at 10.5mph, and both times I failed to finish the second one. 

My plan this year was to increase my running volume over last year and not to worry as much about increasing speed.  This is the first time that I’ve had distance and speed match up so that I can compare my progress.  Obviously I’m much stronger, so it will be interesting to see if I will be able to convert that into more speed as I get closer to my next competition. 

My workouts in the weight room this week all went reasonably well and I was happy with the quality of the work I put in.  The split squats I do at the end of my leg day are killers.  They target the hamstring like nothing I’ve ever done before.  My elbow rehab seems to be working; I threw the 8# ball again with no ill effects.  The shoulder has been a little touchy, but I’ve been pushing on it pretty hard.  The biggest news is that I think I finally found an exercise I can do to help my upper body strength for shot put.  Strangely enough it’s done on my favorite lower body machine.  I will try and post some video of this special adaptation later this week.

I do feel a little more “beat up” than I would like.  It’s from a combination of factors, but mostly from adding the new exercises and ramping up the intensity.  The low back and both hamstrings are still stiff and sore, and the feet, knees, and shoulder will pronnounce their displeasure on occasion.  It’s all part of the package when you’re seeking your fame and fortune as a masters track & field athlete.  Hopefully by next week I will have grown accustomed to the new routine and will be feeling a little more comfortable,

Doing the Work

Well it’s a week into November, and so far it’s been fairly productive.  Taking a few minutes to write down my short-term goals for the month was a good way to get refocused.

Of the four things I chose to work on, the one I figured would be the easiest, getting more protein and good fat in my diet, has proven to be the most challenging.  I’m having two eggs on mornings that I’m hungry instead of just one, and frying them in olive oil instead of cooking spray.  But other than that, an occasional Myoplex,  and snacking on a few more nuts in the evening, I haven’t made much progress.  I need to come up with a good late-morning snack.   I usually have breakfast around 6am, and often don’t get around to lunch until 2pm.   That needs to change.

Item #2,deadlifts, I did 3X this week.    First day I worked up to 145#, next time it was 195#, and today 245#.  So far the elbow has been able to take it, which was my biggest concern.  The lower back and hamstring tightened up considerably mid-week, but don’t know if that was from the DLs or the sprinting I did on the track.  I also decided to add Bulgarian split sqats to my leg routine.  Did those for the first time today and could really feel them in the hamstrings.

Had a so-so running week, making it through my interval workouts with marginal improvements.  The one where I stay anaerobic for as long as possible is a beast.  I take 3 minutes to warm up, then dial up the speed to get my pulse up to 150.  Then I gradually back off on the speed and maintain my heart rate in the 145-155 range for as long as I can.  I made it for a total of 20 minutes this week (including the warmup), which is a long time to be uncomfortable. 

Today I went for my weekly long run (long for a sprinter, that is).  It was a bright, beautiful day and close to 70 degrees, so I ran outside for the first time in a long, long time.  Last week I put in 40 minutes on the treadmill, and that was the first time in at least a year that I’ve run more than 30 minutes at once.  Today I extended that to 60 minutes,although I’m guessing my pace wasn’t quite as fast.   

I’ll have some mile intervals on my menu this coming week, so I should get an idea of how I’m doing on goal #3, running a mile in under six minutes.  Last time I did this workout I think I ran the fastest of my four 1-mile runs @ 9.5mph, so this time out I will probably try one at 9.7 or 9.8 and see how that goes.  To run the mile in 6 minutes you have to be going 10 mph, so I am getting close.

The final item on my list is to make a video about  “the seventh step”, a  jumping workout/goal that I’ve been working on.  Today I took a few pictures and shot a little bit of test video to see what the best way to film it is going to be.  Unfortunately I’ll be working in dark, cramped quarters, so it’s going to be difficult.  I have a wide-angle lens for my video camera, but I didn’t bring it with me today.  I will need to test it to see if it helps. 

I’ve attached one of the still images.  You’ll see that there are three pieces of tape on the wall.  The lowest, at 36″, represents the height of a standard kitchen counter.  The middle piece is set at 45″, the height of the 6th step in the stairwell.  I’ve been successfully jumping (2 step approach) and landing here for quite a while.  My ultimate goal is to make it to step number 7, which is 52″ off the floor.  Pictures don’t do it justice…find a set of stairs and  count up to step number 7.    It looks impossible…and for me maybe it is.  But I’m going to work on it and give it my best shot.  If I can do it I will be a legend…at least in my own mind!

Stairway to Heaven?

Last Day of Summer?

I noticed that it felt pretty warm today when I went home for lunch.  Checked the temp gauge in my truck….80 degrees….sweet!  Decided that I should take advantage of that and do my running outside today.

Left HealthQuest at around 4:00 and jogged the half mile down to Napa High School.  It was a busy place today.  The football team was on the infield as expected, while powder-puff football practiced on the north end in the throwing area.  I shared the track with the girls basketball team.  They were getting pushed through a tough leg/jumping workout when I arrived, which was followed up by 200 meter intervals.  It looked like they were suffering.

I stretched, did some sprint drills, then headed around to the back-stretch to avoid some of the crowd.  I decided to run 120 yard sprints along the edge of the straightaway on the artificial turf.  It felt good to get up on the toes and open the throttle a bit.  I hadn’t run sprints since the Santa Barbara Meet a month ago, so I didn’t go full-out, but stayed in the 70-85% range.  After six or seven repeats my calves let me know they’d had enough abuse so I shut it down.  I stretched a little more and then jogged back to the gym under the long late-afternoon shadows.

High temps  are supposed to drop down into the 60s by Thursday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see 80 degrees again until next spring.   I know our Northern California weather doesn’t approach the frigid temperatures the rest of the country experiences, but I’m a wuss.  Once that needle drops below 70, the cold weather gear comes out.  So today was just a little bonus…shorts and t-shirt…a nice head sweat, a final nod to summer.

Tread Dread

I started getting serious about my middle distance training routine in August.  That gave me about 30 weeks to prepare the big masters indoor track & field meets that will be held early next spring.  I have my interval running workouts broken down into five 6-week segments.  Tonight I started on phase three, which means I am approaching the half-way point.

I toyed with the idea of running on the track this afternoon, as the weather forecast predicted highs of almost 80 degrees in Napa.  But it never felt like it got that warm, and with daylight savings over and it cooling down rapidly, I opted for the treadmill at HealthQuest instead.

I can understand why distance runners shy away from the “dreadmill”.  If the weather’s good, running outside is definitely a little more mentally stimulating.  But for my purposes (running  relatively short, specific distances at pre-determined speeds), the treadmill is the way to go.  I never have to check my pace and worry about running too fast or too slow.

I didn’t make any big changes to the workouts I’ve been doing.  I’ve been happy with my progress, so I just tweaked the existing intervals, speeding them up, extending distances, or cutting recovery times.  I did change to five different workouts instead of six.  I’ve been needing an extra recovery day here and there, and this will give me a little more flexibility.  So I dropped my hill sprint workout.   It had the shortest work period, so I don’t think it will be missed.  I can always add it back later if I feel the need.

 Today’s plan called for four fast (for me) 800 meter intervals, with 3-5 minutes of recovery in-between.    I’m pushing myself hard on these runs, and they can get pretty uncomfortable.  So I tend to psych myself out a little bit more than I probably should.  Part of the problem is that I always want to show improvement over my previous effort, so I will set a higher goal.  Last year if I finished them all at 10 mph, I would start at 10.5 mph the next time I did the workout.  I think I pushed myself too hard and ended up suffering from a bout of overtraining.  I’m trying to be smarter this time around, but old habits die hard.  I just always feel better when I’m achieving new goals, so it’s push, push, push.

I felt more of that “dread” than usual creeping into my thoughts as I was lacing up my shoes.  That’s not a good sign, especially since I had just taken a recovery day yesterday.  So I made a compromise with myself.  I would run the first 800 at a tough but manageable pace, and adjust the remaining three as I went.   So I knocked the first one out at 10 mph and felt pretty good.  Number two I bumped up to 10.5…definitely tougher!  Didn’t feel up to that again so it was 10.3 on the third and 10.1 on the fourth.  My 30 minute ride through hell was over!

That seemed like a good way to tackle it.  I bettered my previous effort (hurrah!), but I was able to ease into it and didn’t try to tackle more than my body was able to withstand.  It was still a very tough workout that made me push hard.  I caught the woman on the treadmill next to me giving me that “what in the hell are you doing?” look.  I couldn’t answer, I was still hunched over gasping for breath.

October Wrap

I’ve been doing rehab exercises for my elbow for two weeks now—boring!  Four different wrist exercises…people must think I’m training to be an arm-wrestler.  I much prefer multi-chain exercises, but I have to give this a try.  So far there hasn’t been any recurrence of pain, and I even threw an 8# shot a few times to give it a bit of a test.  I don’t know if it’s the effects of the cortisone shot, the forearm strap I’m wearing, or the wrist exercises, but it’s definitely feeling better.

The shoulder hasn’t fared quite so well.  It’s been a little sore from time to time, but I’ve grown used to that.  I’m leaning towards putting off any surgery until after the indoor national championships next spring.   If I can keep it together until then I think I have a pretty good shot at winning  the heptathlon.  A lot will depend on how it holds up when I start pole vaulting.

I seem to have aggravated my hamstring injury as of late too.  It had gradually been getting better, and was even OK after the Santa Barbara meet.  But it’s relapsed quite a bit and is more sore now than it’s been in months.  I’ve slacked off on my ultrasound treatments and my stretching and I’m sure that hasn’t helped.  Between the injuries and fact that the competitive season has come to a close, I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately.  When that happens the first thing to get axed are the things I don’t like, hence the limited amount of stretching.

To help combat my malaise, I’ve decided to focus on some short-term goals.  You can read about how this plan of action was inspired on the HealthQuest Blog.  It all started when I read another runner’s blog titled \”I Dare You\”, which challenged readers to make a list of goals for November.  It sounded like just what I needed, and here’s my list:

• add more protein and good fat to my diet (all the running has made adding muscle and maintaining energy levels difficult)  
• add deadlifts to my workout (I’ve never been a fan, but they are universally recognized as one of the best multi-chain exercises you can do)
• produce the “Seventh Step” video I’ve been thinking about and put it up on this blog (it’s a  fun jumping goal…can’t really explain it…you’ll have to watch the video!)
• attempt to run a sub-6 minute mile (this has been a part of my training for the last several months, and it’s quite the challenge for my walnut-sized lungs–I’ve always been a sprinter and have never in my life run a mile this fast)

Speaking of running, tomorrow marks the end of my second 6-week period of training.  I didn’t complete all 18 workouts, primarily because it took me so long to recover from Santa Barbara.  But I did achieve most of the goals and times that I was aiming for, so all is not lost.  For some reason I’m just smoking my 400 meter intervals.  When I started 12 weeks ago I could only manage 6 at 10.5mph; last night I ran 8 at 12 mph.  The improvement hasn’t been quite as impressive on the longer runs, but they’re heading in the right direction too.  I’m hoping that I can get the hamstring injury to calm down without having to curtail my running.

Lastly some of you may have noticed this blog has undergone a name change.  Some of the training stuff I put on here isn’t track related, and I also wanted a place to put some of my coaching stuff .  I figured that broadening my title theme made more sense than adding another separate blog.  I think the new title suits my attitude and my subject matter pretty darn well.  What do you think?

 

Hamstring Preventative Care

Hammy Helper

Physical therapist Eric Ewig showed me this exercise when he was helping me get over my hamstring injury.  The eccentric part of this movement(slowly lowering your bodyweight towards the floor) is supposed to help prevent hamstring injuries.  He used a flat bench and held my lower legs down manually.  I’ve found the ab slant-board at HealthQuest  allows me to do it without assistance.

When you first start doing this exercise, you will probably only get part-way down before your legs give out and you collapse face-first towards the floor.  Be ready for it!  Just try to resist gravity for as long as you can…be warned though, it’s tough.

Once you get all the way down and your legs are straight, then you can start working on coming back up.   It’s an awfully intense hamstring curl…not part of my therapy, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.  Good luck if you decide to try it…let me know how it goes.