Reflections and a Battered Body

Four weeks have gone by since my heptathlon.  I’ve been meaning to write down my thoughts and observations from the meet, but just haven’t been motivated enough to do so.  It’s a rainy Saturday morning so I finally am forcing myself to write this down before I forget it all.

In some of my training reports before the meet I talked about losing the spring in my legs.  This didn’t seem to affect my speed, but it showed itself in the jumping events where my performance was sub-par.   It hasn’t gotten any better since then; I still don’t have the lift that I had a year ago.  Sometimes my strength training routine bothers my knees; they’ve been a little achy-nothing serious-but maybe just enough to be causing the problem.

Shot put went much better in the competition than it did during training…all of my throws were out around 39′, versus mid-30s in practice.  I didn’t do a “safe” standing throw this time, I used the glide on all three.  But once again I fouled a throw by walking out of the side of the ring.  This hasn’t hurt me yet, but I need to break this habit before it does.

My starts out of the blocks were great, especially since I never practice them.  I was a poor starter in high school, so this is a big and unexpected turnaround.  I think that maybe all of explosive leg stuff I do in the weight  room has transferred over to that initial push.

The hurdles were interesting to say the least.  I had felt pretty confident in my practices, but the race was something entirely different.  I had a very good start, but going over the hurdles I was a mess.  I ran almost a half-second slower than last year.  I don’t think I got in enough work over multiple hurdles at full speed.  It also may have been a product of the schedule.  We completed the first day’s events late Saturday night, then came back early the next morning for day two.  I probably should have spent more time cooling down and stretching Saturday night.

Pole vault was definitely a highlight.  I started out rough…every attempt felt different, and I had two misses at 9′ 8″.  But on my third attempt I raised my grip and all of a sudden everything fell into place.  I didn’t miss again until 11′ 6″.  By then I started to tire and things came unraveled again, but in looking at the video of my better jumps it would appear that 13′ (my high school PR) is still within reach.

The 1000 meter run was also interesting.  Last year when I ran it I felt fresh and fast and the laps seemed to fly by rather quickly.  I had a great finishing kick and ran it in 3:25…then sprawled on the track for a good five minutes trying to recover.  This year the laps did not fly by; the entire race was a struggle and I ran 10 seconds slower.  But I needed a strong kick at the end to win the race and the last 80 yards was a full-out sprint.  I sat down against a wall for a few moments, but to my surprise I recovered relatively quickly.

I felt pretty well beat up by the next day.  I had done something to my heel during the 60 meter dash (I didn’t feel it until I walked over to begin warming up for long jump).  I can only guess that maybe it happened while decelerating into the wall at the end of the race.  It didn’t bother me during the rest of the competition, but by Monday I was hobbling because it hurt to put pressure on it.  That lasted a few days.

My elbow was also very tender, the worst it has been since I got the cortisone shot last fall.  Both shoulders were sore as well.  Throwing the shot put doesn’t affect my right side, so I’ll have to put a lot of the blame for this on the pole vault.  As expected the hamstring was tight and sore, and the knees were achy as well.  My calves were sore (they were both cramping during the high jump) but not nearly as bad as after the Club West meet in October.

So what did I learn? 

 1.)  I can put together a decent performance with only a couple of weeks practice

2.)  Don’t expect miracles after only two weeks of practice

3.)  A hep held over two days is more physically demanding then a one day pentathlon

4)  Being ready for a decathlon (400 meter dash & 1500 meter run) will be a huge challenge

5)  I’m not sure my body can continue to take this kind of punishment 

I went back to training (lightly) a few days after getting back.  I’ve had a couple of good sprint workouts on the track since then, but my energy and resolve to run any hard intervals has been lacking.  I’ve changed up my workouts in the gym hoping that it would give me some additional rest and cut down on the soreness, but it hasn’t worked.  I like the routine and I’m feeling stronger, but I can’t seem to shake the nagging aches and pains.  Knees, shoulders, elbow, hamstring, nothing feels very good right now.

I’ve decided to take a little break and do nothing for four days.  Then I’m going to shake up my workouts again and see if I can eliminate some of the things that seem to generate problems for me.  I’m getting pretty frustrated at not being able to do a lot of things that I would like, but I’ve got to figure out a better way.   Being sore all of the time isn’t the answer.

National Champion!

I won the Masters Track & Field  Heptathlon National Championship for my age group with a score of 5061 points.

In my previous post I remarked that I would be “very surprised” if any of my performances fell outside the parameters of this chart.  As it turns out I was wrong the majority (4 of 7) of the time, and out of those four, three were on the “under-performed” side of the chart.

On the bright side I achieved my first All-American standard in a sprint event for my 60 meter time, and I pole vaulted really well, better than anyone else in the entire competition.   I led wire-to-wire and won four of the seven events in my age group.

I’ll get into the details a little later this week when I have a little more time.  It was a great competition and I think I learned quite a bit.

January 15th and 16th, 2010

Took it easy yesterday as planned, a light chest workout, some glides throwing a very light ball, and a 1.5 mile run.  Still a little sore in the inner thighs, but I felt better after I ran.

Today I returned to Petaluma for another pole vault workout.  Bruce told me that he and Keith talked after I left on Wednesday and thought I had a lot of potential.  I felt much more comfortable today and felt like I made some progress.   Even though I forgot my elbow brace I didn’t have any pain today, which was huge.  After being sore on Wednesday I assumed that both the shot put and the pole vault were contributing, but maybe it was just the throwing.

The predicted rains finally arrived tonight, and the forecast is for wet weather throughout the coming week.  Hopefully there will be some breaks where I can get out and do a little speed and hurdle work, but I can’t count on that.   It looks like most of my remaining work is going to have to be done inside and on the treadmill.

Vault Practice

On my way home from lunch I stopped by the high school and got a few throws in with the 10# shot.  I didn’t feel really strong while warming up, but some of my glide throws were pretty good.  The best throw was out around 44′.

After lunch I headed over to Petaluma to see if I remembered how to pole vault.  There’s a man who lives over there (Keith) and he has an all-weather runway and pit in his back yard.   He and another master’s vaulter (Bruce) do the coaching.  Today there was one other masters vaulter  (68 and in great shape) and a high school girl there when I got there, and another guy (decathlete, about 30) and his g/f showed up soon after.  We went through a warm-up routine and then started on some drills.

Keith & Bruce weren’t exactly the warm, fuzzy types (and neither am I) so it was a little awkward at first.  We started with take-off drills, and they were both bombarding me with directions and corrections.  It was all a little much to try to take in.  I hadn’t vaulted in almost 35 years, and even back then I didn’t get very much instruction.  I was getting to the overload point and seriously thinking about quitting.  I prefer to learn (and coach) complex movements by breaking them down and working on one individual component at a time, and we just weren’t connecting. 

Fortunately about then we moved to a 2-step drill where we actually got to start vaulting.  They set a bungee cord crossbar at 8′ 6″ and we worked on getting into the proper take-off position.   After a couple of tries I was getting myself up and over this….and nobody else was!  My form wasn’t great by any means, but I had more speed and strength than anyone else there, so I was able to muscle my way through it.  Once that happened, it seemed like things changed.  I was feeling better about myself, and I think that maybe Keith & Bruce decided that I wasn’t a waste of their time.  The flow of advice continued, but at a rate that I could handle.

Gradually I moved back a little further, and the bungee went up higher.  I think that it eventually got up to 11′.  I wasn’t clearing that height, but I was getting up high enough to give it a good try.   After I was done Bruce told me that he would have me clearing 13′.  I said “sounds good”, but didn’t ask him how long that would take.  That’s a lot more confidence than he had in me on the phone last night, when he told me he would have me going 8 or 9′ by the end of the month.  I’d like to get at least 10’6″ at Nationals, and eventually get over 12′ at some point this year and surpass the All-American mark. 

That will all depend on how much time I can practice, and more specifically how often my body will allow me to practice.  Today was the first time since my cortisone injection 3 months ago that my elbow flared up and caused me some discomfort.  Shot put and vault are both rough on it, so I’m going to have to be careful and not schedule them on the same day.  The pain’s pretty much gone now, but I’m going to have to manage it carefully.  It’s always hardest right before competitions, because I’m trying to cram a lot into a short time period.

When I got back to Napa I went to the gym and put 25 minutes on the elliptical, then I came home and booked my flight to Wisconsin.  I guess that means I’m committed to going.

01/12/2010

Rainy today, so I stayed inside.  Did an abbreviated leg workout before lunch, then worked on my glide step for the shot put.  Just practiced the footwork without throwing today, might try a few throws tomorrow depending on the weather.  For something that seems so simple, there’s a lot going on there in a short amount of time.  I’m still flying open too soon, but I’ll have a few more chances to try and iron it out.

I hit the treadmill tonight and had very good results.  Ran an 800 at my 1000m pace without much difficulty which I followed immediately with an easy 400.  Ran two more shorter intervals after that and recovered relatively quickly.  This was the best I’ve felt in a couple of weeks, even though I had a hard workout yesterday.  Hamstring injury was medium sore, but the “heavy leg” syndrome I’ve had the last few times I ran intervals was gone.

This evening I made contact with a pole vault coach.  He works with other masters athletes and high school  kids over in Petaluma twice a week, where one of the guys has a pit at his house.  I’m going to head over there tomorrow and check it out.  It’s a 40 minute drive, but it will be good to get started with some instruction.  Even though I felt pretty good the one time I fooled around with it last spring, it’s not smart to be vaulting alone, especially this soon.  I feel fairly confident in my abilities right now, hopefully I’ll feel the same tomorrow night. 

I’m feeling more and more positive about going to Wisconsin for the heptathlon.  Tomorrow I may start firming up arrangements.

You Must Be Kidding Me

In my last post I mentioned that I thought that the 2010  Masters Indoor Heptathlon Championship had been cancelled.  The event was held in March in previous years, but never appeared on the 2010 USA Track & Field schedule.   I started doing my conditioning workouts back in August with that date in mind, so I was pretty disappointed.   But then late last night I discovered that the meet IS going to be held after all…in three weeks!!!  It gets even better when you hear the location….Kenosha, Wisconsin!  How do you top late January in Wisconsin?  

I read that the late announcement and the date change were the result of scheduling conflicts.  The World Masters Indoor Championships are up in British Columbia this year, and they didn’t want a date that would interfere with that meet.   I can understand that, but scheduling the hep this early in the season with virtually no notice seems a little insane.  A national championship should be held towards the end of the season, not at the very beginning.

I was targeting this event because I thought I had a decent chance of winning it.  But right now I’m not anywhere near as prepared for it as I need to be, and with only a couple of weeks left to practice that’s not really going to change.  I’ve been doing nothing but conditioning all winter, and have spent virtually no time  training for the specific events.  The heptathlon combines your results in seven track and field events (60m dash, 60m hurdles, long jump, high jump, pole vault, shot put, 1000m run) and my level of preparedness varies quite widely to say the least.

The 60m sprint and the 1000m run aren’t too complicated, and I have been training to run the 1k.  I thought I’d have two more months to work at it, but I can survive it.  I’m strong enough athletically that my long jump, high jump, and shot put will be OK, but the extent of my work on those three events in the last three months was throwing the shot once last week.  It’s been five months since I went over a hurdle, and with my sore hamstring that’s going to be a little rough.  That leaves pole vault…

I was a very good vaulter in high school, but that was almost 35 years ago.  Since then I have practiced one time.  I wouldn’t even call it practice…I just picked up a pole one day last spring when my son was practicing and started fooling around.  surprisingly I felt pretty comfortable with it, but there was no crossbar up, so I’m sure I probably felt a lot better than I actually looked.  Doing it in competition is something else entirely.

In the next few days I’m going to have to decide whether it’s worth attempting this or not.  I’m most concerned about trying to cram two months of event preparation into two weeks.  That’s an impossible task to begin with, and that assumes that I don’t get rained out any of those days.  My biggest concern is that if I push too hard I’ll wind up injuring myself, and that’s the last thing I want do deal with right now. 

This is definitely not the way I had it planned.

2009 Wrap-Up, 2010 Preview

“I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.”

 

I ran across that quote a few days ago and it was a good reminder to work on having a better attitude.   In looking back over some of my posts in 2009 I realized that I tend to focus a lot of my attention on the injuries and setbacks.  I had a surprisingly good track season and accomplished more physically than I thought was possible.  That’s what I need to be writing about.

 

So I started to list some of my wonderful attributes here, but ended up erasing them.  I have a healthy ego and it was a spectacular list, but that’s just not who I am.  My father instilled a sense of humility in me that just gets flat-out uncomfortable when I start to get too much attention.   It’s a strange combination, I know.  I push myself to do things that will draw attention, but when I get noticed I try to deflect it and play it down. 

 

It’s funny what you learn about yourself when you sit down and start composing your thoughts.  The self-realization in that last paragraph came out of the blue.  If nothing else writing this blog has forced me to delve a little deeper into my own psyche!

 

So there will be no detailed list of 2009 accomplishments here.  My track rankings are linked here and I posted videos of anything else that I thought was worth documenting here.   That’s my 2009 wrap-up,,,short, sweet, and to the point.  Now on to 2010.

 

At this juncture I don’t know what the coming year will bring.  My plans to go to the U.S.  Indoor Heptathlon National Championship seem to have come undone.  As far as I can tell, that event did not make it onto the schedule this year.  That’s a bit of a disappointment, because I thought I had a great chance of winning that event, and maybe even challenging the U.S. record in the event.

 

I’m still undecided as to where I should focus my attention.  I could give the pentathlon another shot at the US Indoor Championships which are scheduled for Boston in March.  But to be honest I’m not really gung-ho on that plan.  I could also try the outdoor pentathlon at the US Masters Championships in Sacramento in July.  While that one’s certainly more attractive from a travel standpoint, I’m not as well-suited physically for that event.  I would need to learn to throw the discus (which I think I would do well) and then  hope that I could score high enough in the 200 meter dash and the long jump to overcome the deficiencies my bum shoulder would cause me in the  javelin.

 

I’ve also been toying with the idea of doing a full decathlon.  I figured I would have to re-learn the pole vault for the indoor heptathlon, so all I would have left is the discus and the javelin.  But since there’s no hep I haven’t bothered working on any vault yet, so that makes it a little more complicated.  It hasn’t been scheduled yet either, so I may just wait and see if it’s being help someplace I would actually like to go.

 

The other avenue I’ve considered pursuing it to try to rack up as many All-American standards as I can at local and regional meets.  These standards generally recognize the top 10-12 performers nationwide in each event.  I was an All-American in six events in 2009, and just missed the mark in the 200 meters and the shot put.   There are several more events where I think I would have a decent chance if I put in some training.  This would definitely push me outside my comfort zone and challenge me to work on events that might not be my strongest.

 

For the time being I am just going to continue my conditioning and work on staying healthy.  The first indoor meets I would be looking at start up in February, so I’ve got a few more weeks to figure out what I’m going to do.  Hopefully I will figure something out soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.