Rebuilding Phase

Post-marathon is an interesting phase.  I've taken a keen interest in things like pizza and alcohol, not running as often as I was, and faster intensities when I do run.   Seems like I'm also not that motivated when I get home when its pitch black out too.   Oh and then my achilles tendon has gone past the point of guessing - its tendinitis, and I need to stay off for a while.

So what do I do?

Well I am going to take up some cardio alternatives

Spinning - I've actually been spinning quite a bit - about once a week during my training.  It's a fun activity and good for getting my HR to practice being in a variety of zones, and having to work hard on and off.  Believe me, its tough to go all out, then try again.  Even with a rest - your body likes to turn off a bit.  So with a proper warm up and practice and timing yourself not to push it 100% each time (maybe 95%).  

Anyways to keep up interest, I've been adding little things to my biking/spinning (I have a tri bike on a fluid trainer as well).  I've been adding ant+ sensors to track with my garmin (310xt) and well I have bike shoes that I've never used (I switched form clipless pedals to baskets (I hate falling) so with useless shoes, I was proud of myself for buying and switching the cleats to an SPD cleat.  I should be able to use that to spin now.  Cool.

Aqua running (Deep water) - This is considered good cross training for running - better than biking (as it uses the same muscles/motions - back of leg vs front of leg) and because its in the water, there's no impact + thus a good recovery practice.   It may help to use a floatation device in deep water but not necessary (just have to tread).  The first time I tried it, I thought the gym pool would have a float belt (Goodlife) as the prior gym (Extreme) did.  Well at my location anyway.  So I was excited for deep end stuff because the old pool was also just a lane pool at the same depth of 5'.

So there I was trying to figure it out - do I use the rescue bouy? No that's probably not smart.  So I pick up a couple of pool noodles and float on them like a little kid.  I was certainly a laughing stock in my mind.  The best part is the pool is exposed by a windowed walkway into the gym, and another one by the heavy weights area.  I'm sure people thought I was the biggest douche they've ever seen in the pool but they were polite enough not to laugh.    I hope you get a good laugh reading it.  I acted though as it was manly as heck as I am manly taking my injury seriously and trying not to run on it unlike the weekend where I was sprinting along up and down Mount Royal in Montreal.  


Okay maybe one or two pics to keep my blog interesting:

(view from popular lookout on mountain)

Weights - haven't explored this yet, but I will probably work on hip flexors/core and leg muscles, and back.  It's a good time to get my body back in order before the next round of training.


Thanks for reading! 

Goals for the 6 month term

So just looking for something to post in a lull of training.   I am still running, but now in a range of about 45kms per week (down from 60 to 100). 

Things are going well - however I've noticed some slight pain in the Achilles tendon.  Slight tendinitis, but manageable.  I've had unmanageable Achilles tendinitis twice in my life, so this one doesn't seem to bother me.   Most of my running has been on treadmills in the last little while.  Boring little things.  However I am getting used to it.  I love running outside, but when the sun is setting at 6:30pm it's pretty depressing and I don't want to go run in the dark (right now).  Give it a month maybe. 

I realize I'm not going to be able to do my Thurs run where I was doing grassy and/or random hills (sometimes just pathways up a hill like Mad Dog style) in the park in the evening anymore.  Even with a lamp head its pretty dark for those ones.  Oh well.

Onwards and upwards.

Okay so the only race I've signed up for is the 30k Around the Bay in Hamilton for March 25, 2012.  This one is one of the main pillars of tests - to see how you're doing for the May races.   Most likely I'll be running May 6th in my Sub 3 hr attempt.   There I've said it.  A sub 3 hr marathon attempt.   It usually more obtainable when it's written down and so that's what I've done.

I have plans to run other races in the meanwhile - there's a 10 miler on Boxing day, or an 8k in early Jan or even a half in the beginning of March.  In the past I was only doing a few races at a time, but last half of this year (July - Oct) has had me racing 2x a month and I've quite enjoyed it.

Well that's all for now.  I plan to take some more running on location shots this weekend.  We'll just have to wait and see!

Oh other results from the Mad Dog Scramble - It looks like I was 5/9 for my group (Wave 9) and 2/4 people from Wave 10 (super advanced) beat me.   It's not bad to fit in 50% of these guys I think it says a lot -especially when I started the first half k sprint I was 7th or 8th by the time we got into the park. 

That's all for now ~ cheers!