Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Don't get old if you can help it

It's Hell getting old.  Maybe I should say "older," since, compared to most of my patients, I'm not really old.  Some days, though, I definitely feel older than others.  Take yesterday, for example.  Following my plan of running less, but running faster, I headed out on the track for a ladder of 400, 600, 800, 1200, 800, 600, 400 all with a 400 RI.  Because I was a bit busy in the morning, I didn't do this at Noon as I had planned, but ended up on the Steilacoom HS track at 5:00 PM in the dark.  Which was okay.  There were some benches and barriers on the track, but nothing that I would be running into, I hoped, even if it was pretty dark.  It was nearly a full moon, but since the clouds were hiding it, there wasn't much light, except for the spotlight on the flag at the far end of the field.  That, actually, looked pretty cool. 

So, off I went on a 2 mile w/u.  I was wearing my Newtons; I had thought about using racing flats, but hoped that I could still make the intervals easily wearing training flats.  At the 1.5 mile mark, I did some 100 m strides, and didn't feel too bad.  However, I did notice my left hip (more correctly, groin) was acting a bit unhappy.  I had tweaked it during the Turkey Trot (see previous entry for the details), but it hadn't been too bothersome until now.  Still, I didn't think it would be a problem. 

As soon as I started the 400, I knew that my groin was a bigger problem than I expected.  It got progressively more painful after the first 100.  By the time I came around to the start/finish, I wondered if I would be able to continue the workout.  I was having problems planting and pushing off and I definitely couldn't stride out on my left.  To make things even more problematic, my watch was all messed up.  So, while I think I made the interval (should have been 1:29), I couldn't tell.  During my 400 recovery jog, I thought about my predicament.  I decided to run the 600 and see what happened.  I also thought that I fixed the problem with my watch.  I hit the button to start the 600 and took off.  Immediately, I realized that my leg was not going to let me finish the workout (at least at the intervals I wanted).  I chopped my stride, ran the rest of the lap fairly gingerly and stopped at the 400.  And it was over.  To add insult to injury, when I looked at my watch to see what my first 400 time was, I couldn't get it to recall. 

I guess I'm not running for a little while.  I missed my target of 100K for the month, but that's not a huge deal; it was just a motivator.   I'm going to see if I can still ride and swim.  Right now, I'm walking kind of like I just got off a horse.  Seems that things like this never used to happen to me 20 years ago, when I was younger and faster.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Not having a clue

I ran a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot the other day.  The weather was as good as it gets for late November in the Pacific Northwest:  cool, dry, and kind of sunny.  Basically, I looked at the weather forecast, and when rain wasn't listed, I signed up the boys and me.  While a 5K doesn't burn all that many calories, it helped to justify the binge eating that I was going to do later in the day.  And besides, what else am I going to do on a holiday morning, right?

We made the trek to NE Tacoma for the Norpoint Turkey Trot.  After picking up our shirts and numbers ($35 for a short sleeved one color white t-shirt for Ryan?  Really?), we headed over with the McMonigal family.  I warmed up briefly with David and JJ and took my place at the start, several rows behind the front, figuring all of the high schoolers in front of me were going to be going a lot faster than I was.  My plan was to ease my way through the first mile, and pick it up.  The gun went off (it was an actual cannon!) without a countdown, so we were all a bit surprised.  As I got started, within the first 100 yards, some bozo went sprinting by me and cut me off, tripping me.  I struggled to remain upright for about 20 yards, before finally losing my balance and falling, scraping my knee and elbow.  I think somebody else went down behind me as well.  I rolled over, got up and sprinted up to yell at the bozo who tripped me.  As I caught and passed him, I yelled... well, let's just say that it wasn't "Have a nice day."  So much for taking it easy.  I ran the rest of the way without looking down at my knee, because I didn't want to see how badly it was scraped up.  I did look at my elbow, and my long-sleeve top wasn't torn, so that was a good sign.  I decided not to look at my watch for my splits; turns out my splits were pretty reasonable, given the topography of the course:  6:25, 6:17, 7:00.  I probably seeded myself too far back, as I was only passed by two people and passed a bunch, finishing 18th overall and 2nd in my AG (40-49).  Total time:  20:32. 

I went back to find the boys, and David was moving right along, and finished in 24:xx.  Ryan wasn't too far back at 30:xx.  David was 4th in his AG and Ryan was 9th.  Altogether, not too shabby a performance for the Ling family.  As we were walking back home, my left hip started tightening up, and I realized that I probably tweaked it a bit during the fall.  And yes, there was blood and some abrasions on my knee and some abrasions on my elbow, and there is a hole in the palm of one of my gloves. 

So... since we're chip-timed, what was the point of the bozo sprinting ahead and tripping me?  No idea, since he ended up finishing around 25-26 minutes.  I guess I've never understood that.  Why is it that people believe they're going to set a PR for their race by sprinting for the first 200 yards of a race and then dying and moving backwards through the field?  Especially in a little po-dunk race, what's the point of it?  It's not like they're going to be on TV.  It's not like it will matter when they cross the start line, since everything is chip-timed now.  Ah well, maybe the bozo that tripped me will have learned a lesson about seeding himself and starting more reasonably in the future.  Or maybe I just need to get closer to the front...

Thursday, November 15, 2012

I don't need a GPS; I need a sun dial

Well, there have been some interesting workouts lately that have me questioning the utility of all my high-tech gee whiz gadgets.  First, I had to swim a 200 IM for time.  Yep, that would be 3 out of 4 strokes that I don't do very well.  I only got lapped once by a 13 year old.  And David didn't really laugh at me when I finished... much.  My second workout was my 5K time trial to establish my baseline workout times.  This goes back to the Run Less, Run Faster protocol that I'm trying to follow.  And it also goes to the Endurance Nation Outseason workouts.  Both want 5K, although RLRF says that I can use 3 x 1600 with 1 minute rest (on the track).  While I would have much preferred the 3 x 1600, I decided to time trial as I thought  it would be a more accurate gauge.  So last Saturday afternoon, I sucked it up and headed out.  It was cool but sunny.  I chose the flattest 5K out of a run to Fort Steilacoom park and back.  This included nearly 1 mile of flat, paved, almost completely straight bike path that I ran out and back as well as some flat sidewalk before and after.  I didn't even look at my Garmin, because I didn't want to know.  When I got home and downloaded it, the truth was ugly.  21:13 for 5K, which comes out to 6:50/mile.  If you would have told me even 5 years ago that I'd be working so hard to run so slow, I would have never believed you.  And if you would have told me 20 years ago that I would ever be this slow, well...

I guess I have nowhere to go but up.  Because I can't get any slower... can I?!