Training Log Archive: W

Its a Sunday! And I have time! 'urrah! No invitees on this run, just me, Freaknomics, and the trails. Really nice day out, and just kind of run at whatever I felt like until the loop I was on was over. I thought I'd stay mostly try on the trails, but some were actually quite muddy and wet, so, whatever. My knee is slowly improving, and calf-maggedon is pretty much totally over now (or, at least, back to normal-ish levels).

This is the first time for quite some time where I'm almost running entirely pain-free!

Come to think of it, that seems like tempting fate. So what I meant to say was OH THE PAIN, THE PAIN OF IT ALL, WHAT A WORLD, WHAT A WORLD. MAKE IT STOP.

Fate averted.

The snow has yet to melt. Well, not entirely true, its kind of melted. Enough to make some places clear, and others a death trap of ice. So, corners were a tad sketchy, but plenty of nice open space to try and ran quickly and also comfortably. What do you know, I ran about 3:30 pace for 4 x 5 minutes w/ 3 minutes off. I don't quite know how I managed that for 10 miles when this seemed sufficiently hard for 5 minutes. Still, I thought some of the times when I felt good, I felt quite good. Must have been a downhill at the time, I'm sure.

I stumbled upon a wacky new playlist on Songza - Electro-Swing. Its so good. It even sometimes features Movits! whom I totally forgot about.

Video change! This would probably be a really, really fun show. And they were in Vancouver last week! Makes me feel slightly less cynical about DJ'ing live.

Good god, slow as molasses. Is it possible to have a negative training effect? Probably. This is the sheer definition of junk miles. But what's a guy supposed to do? Run absolutely every workout alone, or occasionally run with other people? I suppose phase one is to not suggest this length of run with other people. If I want to do that, stick with recovery half hours and stuff. Its probably my own fault for ramping up this pace. Its arguably not even a social pace for me. I'm not certain I'd be able to chit chat and run at 4:30-4:45 even if there were someone beside me. I do feel arguably out of breath if I'm running with others at a 5:00/km pace, which doesn't feel unreasonbly slowly, at least not so slow that I feel its unproductive. It seems like a positive speed. But 6:30? Not so much.

I decided that hopping on the bike was the right choice for a PM workout in this case, especially if I wanted to do a solid interval workout the next morning.

A nice run before work on Thursday afternoon. It snowed again, yay, so there was snow on the ground, and not the fastest run, but still brisker than I thought. The knee feels slightly better, the calves also slightly better, though heavily compressed. Compression au maximum.

I decided, whether I like it or not, to declare Calf-maggedon '014 official over, mainly because I needed to check control locations for my meet next Wednesday. Stopped in a few places to explore, especially this new tiny area of actually kind of white forest, ruined only by an enourmous treehouse that naturally has huge amounts of garbage and wood with nails in it. Maybe I should have taken the time to throw those ones in the thicker woods so I can use the area, but I didn't. Its a tiny little loop, but hopefully they'll all be pleased to run a little extra distance to get something, however briefly, new.

I wasn't intending to run, but after I got asked, I decided it was probably a good idea to get out and try and loosen up the legs that way. The knee has been stiff all day, but really, my inability to walk was exclusively due to my calves, which feel like someone has repeatedly taken a hammer to them. It started out as a very slow waddle, but mercifully sped up to a slightly faster waddle, especially after getting off the pavement and on to the trails. It doesn't feel like it now, but I'm sure this was good for me in the long run.