Crossing the start line. I very much like the look of that foot plant - definitely not heel striking there:) (Copyright SuperSportImages.com)<'whine'>
The DOMS wore off yesterday and was replaced with a quite uncomfortable sensation in my left shin. I'm not planning on going to a physio to get it confirmed (I am getting good at avoiding running myself, I don't need someone else to tell me to!), but it's probably a mild 'stress reaction', or whatever the medical jargon would have it called these days.
I find it frustrating that this year has essentially gone to shit after such a promising start. I'd built up an enormous aerobic base from xc skiing and running up hills in Germany, felt invincible injury wise after massively increasing my mileage with no problems, and was expecting to run some big PBs. Got back to Australia and actually increased my training load (amazing that I now spend more time training than I did in the holidays despite uni and work commitments:|), was still running mostly injury free (apart from a small flare-up of shin splints in March). The fast times didn't materialise, in fact I seemed to get slower after I got back, but at least I was still building a huge base.
By June, after 6 months of heavy training, I was in the shape of my life, netting what converts out to be my best PB - 8k in 30:34. Two weeks later, I got a 6 minute PB in the Run Melbourne Half.
...And that was the peak. Ever since then, I just haven't been able to run consistently. One injury problem after another has meant that I haven't had a decent training block for a good 4 months. I look at some of the weeks I was putting together back in April - May and I just can't believe I was able to do that. Three runs over twenty km per week...Right now, just doing one run of that duration sets me back a few weeks.
That's not to say I've lost fitness. I'm a lot fitter aerobically now than I was then, and I can handle much bigger (aerobic) training loads than I could at the start of the year. So I don't feel that I've wasted this year. I just feel disappointed that it's not translating into the times that I believe I'm capable of.
<'/whine'>
So in one word, my problem at the moment with running is 'consistency'. I was in the same situation last year. Despite being a lot fitter than I'd been in 2006, when I first started running, I still hadn't broken my PBs over any distance except the HM. I put it down a crash training method, where I'd put in a really big week, then be too tired/sick/injured/sore to do much the next week.
Back then, I decided to go back to basics. Screw intervals. Screw tempo runs. Screw long runs. I just wanted to get out there and run every day, no matter how small the distance was. I started off doing 30k per week. Not much, but I was getting out there every day. I gradually built it up, (and then threw the 10% rule out the window and jumped up to 110k per week from a previous max of 70) and that's how I began the excellent block of training that lasted from December 07 to June 08.
It worked for me then, and I think it will work for me now. My problem this year has probably been that when I've had slight setbacks with injury, I haven't cut back after I got over it. If anything, I sped up after I hit each bump in the road, somehow hoping to win back the time I had lost. That's really not a sensible way to do things, and looking back on it, that's something I would definitely change.
So here's my plan. After I can run without pain - I'm not sure how long it will take my leg to heal, maybe a week or two - I'll get back into the 'streaking' philosophy. Someone once told me that running sans clothes is a sure-fire method to avoid injury, and I'm desperate enough to believe them... If all goes well, the streak will also appear in my running log:) My record at the moment is 39 days from mid May to mid June, and I'd like to beat that!
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The hundred pushups challenge is still going well. I'm up to week three at the moment, and I intend to stay there until I can do week 3 day 3 column 3 (22/30/20/20/>28) seven days in a row. My ultimate goal, I've decided, is to be able to complete a workout completed by a character in one of my favourite books (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts): 20x30 pushups, followed by 500 situps and a 10km run. I don't know what kind of sport it would be good for, but nonetheless, it is a goal challenging enough that it will take me a good deal of time to reach. Then I'd have to back it up for another six days...
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Three days til ATB..
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