Tag Archives: knees

On The Fly

The confidence that I had in my fitness a few days ago is now as unstable as my knee, wavering in a stiff breeze. Since I am still two and a half weeks out, I am reconsidering my my race prep strategy. It is definitely a heavy schedule and I think I might have given myself a little much credit to think I can conquer and thrive with this program.

Last week I did two workouts a day, twice, just to fit it all in around my clients, but that resulted in runs ending early, running too slowly, or just putting myself through unnecessary pain for mediocre outcomes.

It also resulted in me barely being able to keep my eyes open past 5pm.

Throughout the week, I was happy with the effort that I was putting in, but when it came time to run a 5km (yesterday’s planned workout), I was too burnt out from my workouts for the run to come together as planned.

My 5km turned into a 4km in 20:10; I guess I would rather run a decent 4km than a bad 5km. It’s not like I should practice gutting out that last kilometer in preparation for the race or anything. In a race scenario I would be asking a lot of myself to get through that last kilometer with my fastest pace with these type of training runs. Just because I am confident that I am capable of a sub 25 probably doesn’t mean I should get comfortable and train like an idiot.

I haven’t actually made any changes to my programming yet, but I think I’m asking too much from my body. It does seem to be a trend that no one else thinks my muscles are as big as I do, so maybe I should step back and re-evaluate.

I have convinced myself that any inactivity could give my knees a chance to go back to their old ways of getting all bent out of shape. So instead of listening to my body I’m just trying to keep things moving aggressively. Logical.

A rolling stone keeps rolling faster, and faster, and faster.

As long as I can squeak out my sub 25 run in 19 days then I will consider myself to have been successful.

For now, anyways.

 

BlogRun

Advertisement
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Again, but From Here

It has been 2 weeks since the race, and today was my first run since. After a week off for knee relief, followed by several tiring days and a few sleepless nights, I decided that not running was the best training option. I was also hoping that my muscle memory would forget my last performance, and go back to my older, faster, gait. I’m sure there is a historical example of where sitting, waiting, and wishing resolved an issue…

Once my knees remembered that they are 27 and not 87, I opted to run today and start back into a more goal- oriented workout schedule. I headed out into the sunshine and relatively fresh air (it is Toronto, after all) and started off with the intention to run 20 minutes easy, followed by 10 minutes at a 5k pace. Somewhere, the running gods were having a great laugh at my expense.

I felt exhilarated to be running again; with the cool wind at my back, the sun in my face, and the musical serenades of obnoxious, beat- driven dance songs in my ears. I planned an out and back course and felt great until about halfway, when the sun started feeling a little too hot and perfectly timed, an elderly woman told me “I wish you wouldn’t run in this heat”. I gave a friendly smile back to her concerned scowl, but saved my breath for the way home.

I changed my plan to just run for 30 minutes because I was anticipating that my threshold pace and my easy pace were one and the same today. I imagined that at 20:01 I would lurch forward and catch myself, falling back into the exact same pace. No extra energy to waste on that one good stride today! It was just a little heartbreaking that my easy pace was actually a few seconds per kilometer faster than my race pace two weeks ago, but not to worry, I knocked that out of my system and dropped down to somewhere around a 5:30/km pace.

The only time I got close to my wannabe 5km pace was when I saw a sprinkler and actually chased the stream of water (which I did not catch up to) so I then casually came to a pause (shamelessly stood on someone’s lawn) so that I could not be missed this round.

The rest of the trip home was slow and hot, a drippy combination of sweat and hose water. But it happened, and 30 minutes came.

It is hard to be disappointed with any run at this point so I’m eagerly looking ahead to the next one.

I have to catch that sprinkler.

 

 

 

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
%d bloggers like this: