Training Log Archive: W

Headed out to SWC for a ski. I wasn't sure whether anyone else was going to be there. Started out by myself and did about 35 minutes of higher pace before I ran into the rest of the crew and the pace absolutely plummeted. But, that's okay, still good to get out and do some skiing. Snow came down pretty heavy for a while there, but not enough to make a huge dent. Even if I didnt' get a full 90 minutes of higher tempo, still a good bit of ex-o-cise.

Particularly evident int he change of pace by the HR graph at the bottom - yikes!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/244756366

Therefore, I felt the need to get out in the evening for another jog with some more higher tempo stuff. Averaged around 4:45 pace for a while, and then my legs started to get quite tired, so that was a sign to ease off the pace a bit for the last 25 minutes. It may also be a product of being mostly on pavement rather than trail. My legs do not like that at all.

And by big day, I don't mean a big training day, I mean a big shop day. The snow is really good, the weather is nice, guaranateed to be an insane Saturday.

Nevertheless, we ventured out early morning to do more 4x4s, this time classic. We need to pick a different 4x4s loop for classic, the same loop for skating just doesn't quite have the same effect for classic, too much double poling, not enough striding. I suspect Capilano would be better for that.

Anyway, arms to weak to feel really really strained, and my wax choice was a little slippy. Never the less good to get out before an epic and painfully long day at the shop. Sore feet, sore back, sore everything, but finished off the night with a fun time of 4-player goldeneye and bomberman 64. Anyone have a copy of Super Smash Brothers or Mario Kart 64 they want to sell?

Saturday was going to be a big day, so in anticipation of that, I did another brisker workout, this time with a bit of orienteering. Had an acquaintance design a course which was meant to be "a bunch of controls that zig-zagged" from one end of a letter sized 1:5000 map, the result was a planned course that had... 10 controls. *cough* . Nevertheless, as a relatively open area, Laurier is perpetually a good time just to work on compass bearings, which is something maybe I need to create a list in my head on steps to a proper procedure, I'm not sure. Maybe I'm not holding my hand flat, maybe its not pointing straight out from my body, I'm not sure. Its not a rocket science skill, but such deviations make such a vast difference over even a short period.

I'm not quite sure what I can do to improve it save for practicing over and over, but I don't really have any direct feedback to know if there's something I could be doing different or better. What's the point of repeating the same mistakes over and over (even if its unknowingly)?

Another jog, this time in the evening. Nothing to special to see here, just getting the legs out (though a tad faster than usual!).

So this is another aspect of my new training plans - run workouts harder. I know, I've said this before, but now its a bit more focused. I'm going back to basics and using the VDot concepts from Jack Daniels (as I'm sure every user of this site knows), to dictate the pace of my easy workouts. This means I'm aiming to increase them to around 4:25-4:35 pace, which is most definitely a significant increase. Obviously I can't quite jump into that, so some "easy" workouts aim for that, some only parts. Naturally, some guys I run with don't have any plans on running at that pace, so that'll be problematic at times.

Nevertheless, I looked at the logs of guys like Murray and Julian, and they definitely have a pretty high tempo for basically all of their standard runs. I suppose this is just indicative of the different training culture of runners and skiers. Runners tend to do far more race pace-y kind of stuff, while skiers are much more "ski easy or ski very hard", with little in between. Presumably it'll just take some time to adjust. It will also be pretty difficult over the winter to achieve that pace when I'm running in softer or unstable condition. But, its the effort that really counts, and I'll just have to figure that out over time.

Also I NEED to get back in the gym. For shizzle.

Also, booked my flight home from New Zealand, just in time to race the Tawatinaw 30k! Boom!

Wow, 4x4s, its been a while. Back to Goldbar for Wednesday night FT training, with a sweet group! A big change from last year, where it was only me. Now, we had 6 people out, who I'm pretty sure all said they're going to come every week from now on.

Anyway, 4x4s, a pretty brutal workout, working on VO2Max, straight up. Blast your ass off for 4 minutes, then try to recover. I actually think I was probably going too hard, it felt like a sprint effort. Still, I also feel like it may just be my own change in body size that's made me ski differently. I think my tempo is much higher, but the power (especially in the arms) has gone way down. I feel lighter and snappier, whereas before I was much more of a huge force kind of skier. I wish there some real sprint races I could enter to test myself, but the only way to do that is to go to a NorAm, and I don't have the fitness to make the heats, so it would be a $40 entry fee for a 3 minute race. That'd be lame.

I'm also trying very, very hard to concentrate on pushing myself harder. I believe I've mentioned this before, but I think my pain tolerance sucks. So I really, really consciously yell at myself to go harder, if it hurts, "GO F***** HARDER". If I have to shout it out loud, I will. As with all sport psychology, it needs to be trained, and in the case of self-talk, it can never hurt to verbalize your goal thoughts first, to maximize impact. I would hope that over time the mere thought would be sufficient.

For instance, tonight I got my HR up to 177! So close to 180! That'd be a huge achievement, effort-wise, I think.

Headed down to Goldbar for a nice easy ski with Patrick. Trails were fairly crowded with Edmonton Nordic kids everywhere. The conditons are rapidly deteriorating. That's not to say I'm not using my good world cup hole skis, more that they are deteriorating in a standard edmonton way. They get heavily packed down and rutted, as well as walked all over by morons who don't have courtesy to walk to the side. The groomers will also say that there isn't enough snow to grind, only to roll, so they'll just keep rolling and rolling and rolling until its a continuous 5km of a sheet of ice. With the bit of warming we have, in a week we'll have to be back to rock skis between the snow deterioration and the debris covering the trails. Then we'll need more snow to bring it back to normal. Some colder weather to scare people off would also be nice.

Morning run. Holy moly, my groin was quite sore, as was a different section of my feet. Pretty slow going in quite a few places where the snow is soft or packed down in that weird way that's not quite packed and not quite soft and is really, really difficult to run on. Sped up the pace a bit to run around 5:00/km for the last half once I got on bike path.

I have concluded, speaking of feet, that that's is going to be what ends my athletic career. For some people, its knees, or ankles, or shoulders, or back, for me, its going to be my feet. If its not the Plantar Fasciitis, its my arches, or blisters somehow getting infected and causing my toes to fall off. Its the perpetual toe destruction causing massive swelling and bruising, one toenail turned purple several years ago and didn't fall off, but has just stayed permanently purple. Its the waking up in the morning to pain in my talus and my arch. I no longer can go barefoot around the house, I always have to wear sandals, or they get too sore.

One day my feet are just going to say they've had enough and run away or they'll just be unrecognizable mass of bone, ski, and the occasional tarsal.

From Foot Injuries

Bet you weren't expecting a photo.

Kicked it for another run in the evening. Dynamite night to be out. Stuck to the road to get a higher tempo.