This break showed me a few things:
Oddly enough, I think the plantar fasciitis in my left foot feels worse now that I'm not running than when I was running. Which probably means I do a much better job of keeping myself stretched out when I'm working out. I think I can say the same thing about my hamstrings and lower back as well. Some are telling me it's because of the endorphins but I think it's more like "use it or lose it".
I can definitely say that working out definitely provides me with more energy than not working out. I've had more sleep the last two weeks and yet I have felt more tired. I mean all through the day. One of my friends at work said to me a long while back that he does his workouts in the morning because he feels totally oxygenated the rest of the day. At the time I kind of understood what he was saying but now, now I really understand.
The other thing which I suppose I should have expected was how different food was affecting me. A few days into this break, I started to notice anything I ate that had sugar in it really made me feel odd. I'm guessing it's because I really didn't have a need for it. It would just hit the blood stream and my brain would feel like I just overdosed on sugar.
I also was finding certain foods were no longer appealing. In hindsight I wish I kept better track of this. There were definite adaptations my brain/body was expecting of me. If I had been tracking on fitday.com, I'm guessing it would have been clear to me what the adjustments were.
Enough about diet stuff.
This past Sunday was the Skylands Triathlon. This race is about 25 minutes away, I wasn't racing but it was a 9AM start. I wanted to go watch the race for a few reasons. I was hoping to see some of my friends that I haven't seen in awhile, I wasn't sure who if anyone was registered tho'. I also enjoy the whole vibe of race day. I think I was hoping to capture some of that and use it for inspiration. So we woke up packed the camera and headed over to the race. Naturally it started to rain, because that's what happens at Triathlons that I attend in 2010. I kept asking Genine if she'd rather just go to breakfast but she went along with it.
We didn't have the luxury of being in a wetsuit during the rain. So we were standing under awnings down near the beach until it was time to start. Then Genine held the umbrella and I took a ton of pictures. I was surprised to find that none of our old triathlon gang was there. So there wasn't much point of hanging around too long. We took off well before the final finisher, I think some people may have been heading out to run.
As I was editing the photos I came across one photo that really stood out. Check this out.
I hope that her areobars are in the position they are in because something got loose during her ride, otherwise that just looks incredibly uncomfortable. Although it could be incredibly aerodynamic. (maybe)
I'm not sure I left the race feeling the way that I'd hoped but I was glad that I went. I want to be back in the mix. So Genine and I headed to the pool that afternoon, only to find out they close at 3:30 on Sundays. It's been that was all summer. Wow, I guess we really haven't been swimming at the pool much this summer.
I finally got to the pool Tuesday night. I figured I'd give my ankle a pool workout before trying running Wednesday night. I was on my own for this workout, sometimes this is a bad thing. I think it worked out for the best because instead of following a workout I tried a few things out on my own. I've lost a bunch of my swimming strength, which means I need to spend some time with the pull buoy. I wanted to make sure I wasn't using it as a crutch, so I pulled out the swim metronome. Initially I set it to my Timberman cadence, this was a comfortable pace but I could see that I was going to have trouble holding even that slow of a cadence for a long time. So I decided to test my 100m time with different cadences. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the numbers. I think my 1:10 cadence resulted in a 1:38/100m. The 1:00 resulted in a 1:34/100m and when I set it to :50 I felt like I was flailing and out of sync. My time fell back down to 1:39/100m. I should have been keeping track of my stroke count as well...
I was in the pool for less than an hour but it was a good workout. It's got me thinking about putting a plan together with some sort of "test" every two weeks. I think that would provide some motivation to get to the pool more often. The tests will let me know if I'm improving and when I've stalled, at which point I'll look to get some coaching. That's where I am with swim direction.
As for marathon direction, hopefully I get to take this ankle out for a test run tonight. I think I was losing hope, that was until we had dinner with Kevin and Lara Saturday night. He reminded me that he had to take quite a long break during his training the one year. He also told me that his plan has a max of 40 miles per week. I was doing a very aggressive plan. If/when I get back to running, I need to take a good look at my run plan options and reevaluate. I still have a chance at getting this NYC Marathon thing done.
1 comment:
did you test run the ankle?
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