Nuts and Bolts

Since my last entry a few things have changed. No mental breakthroughs or abstract musings. Really it's just been very square. I was able to break my personal best in dead lifting at the gym this past Saturday. I was also able to break total miles climbed on the stairclimber at the gym. I did a 1 hour 30 min session and climbed over 500 floors. So fitness is coming along. Well at least gym fitness.

I was able to run today during lunch. I am really enjoying working on my stride,footing and overall symmetry. I have really been able to lock into a solid forefoot landing in my flats. I am finding it's helping a nagging ligament issue in my left inner ankle that has been painful for years now. Seems the forefoot landing helps reduce pronation on my left side which is the cause of the ligament pain. I did not expect this. I am finding I am able to run further and further without breaking form or feeling uncomfortable keeping it.

My tendon was not grumpy at all during my run at lunch today. Today was the first day I was able to run my 5 mile loop in the city without one single tinge of pain. Granted I have been really being sure to keep the pace slow and the form solid. But I am seeing glimpses of possible what is to come. Healing.

My hope is this "step back" from fast running and taking time not only to sort out my running form issues but also inflexibility issues will dividends in the long term. As I progress through this little project it's becoming apparent to me what happened over this last racing season. I was running more miles per week than I ever had. I was running this miles faster than I ever had. Those two things revealed deficiencies in my form that were not apparent at lower mileage/slower mileage of past.

I thought about cars today while running. Low horsepower slower cars can get away with unbalanced wheels,unbalanced internal engine components. But start adding horsepower and speed and those things become crucial in keeping things together. I suspect the human body is much like that. Balance,strength are essential in keeping things together. Along with good fuel.

That is one of the other items on my hit list to fully sort. My diet outside of racing is solid. But during racing it's lacking. I am rather inconsistent in eating while racing and typically wait WAY too long before ingesting calories. This has caused serious issues for me in the longer races. I just cannot recoup calories lost and I end up bonking hard towards the end of the race. So on some of my longer climbs at the gym on the stair climber I am beginning to see how my body reacts to gels,food ect ect. Watch how long it takes me to bonk. How long it takes for a gel to restore my energy after I bonk. I need to really find out how often,when and how many I need to maintain consistent energy without overdoing the food intake. This is going to take some time to sort.

So anyway I am going to try and run everyday this week during lunch and continue to hit the gym after work. Hopefully at some point I can begin to nix the gym in the AM and cut way back on weight training and begin to train for running and not gym fitness!

I do know that Derek's training is also coming along very well. He is WAY ahead of me in fitness and speed. It will be interesting to see how his training and mine shake out over the coming months. Though we are VERY similar when racing Derek's training is VERY VERY different than mine. Always amazing me how different the formula can be for each runner yet can yield fantastic results. Ah the art of the run!