Having completed my spring “A” race back in April I am looking at the diary and wondering what’s going unfold in the next few months. I have my option of fall ‘A’ races, I am leaning towards the Sierra Nevada (SN) run in September, I have heard that Mt Disappointment (MD) is considered to be one if not the hardest 50 miler in the state, not just due to the trail, elevation etc but also the heat, early August in the San Gabriel’s can easily top out at 100 degree or more, if I go for the SN I expect to volunteer for MD anyway and there are a couple of training runs in July which cover 30 or so miles of the 50 mile course which I could attend. Anyway I have given myself the week of June 23rd before I make a decision. The objective for whichever race is to break 11 hours and thereby be able to submit my name into the Western States lottery; there I said it in public and hey you gotta be in to win it, well by win I be be on a ticket when they pull the 400 names out the hat that contains nearly 1500!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Blips on the radar!
Having completed my spring “A” race back in April I am looking at the diary and wondering what’s going unfold in the next few months. I have my option of fall ‘A’ races, I am leaning towards the Sierra Nevada (SN) run in September, I have heard that Mt Disappointment (MD) is considered to be one if not the hardest 50 miler in the state, not just due to the trail, elevation etc but also the heat, early August in the San Gabriel’s can easily top out at 100 degree or more, if I go for the SN I expect to volunteer for MD anyway and there are a couple of training runs in July which cover 30 or so miles of the 50 mile course which I could attend. Anyway I have given myself the week of June 23rd before I make a decision. The objective for whichever race is to break 11 hours and thereby be able to submit my name into the Western States lottery; there I said it in public and hey you gotta be in to win it, well by win I be be on a ticket when they pull the 400 names out the hat that contains nearly 1500!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
100 hours in 1000 words!
A quick round up from over the weekend. Friday my wife and I headed to the local Four Seasons Hotel for a his'n'her massage, some pool time and a general catch up without the kids, it was actually our Wedding Anniversary, well a day late, ten years! And although we had gone away earlier in the year while my in-laws were in town, under the heading of “we’ll never manage it on the actual day” well, we did. After a great massage, lunch by the indoor pool I headed off to the gym, I was scheduled for a 10 miler but after 5 I was dieing, the gym was so hot I looked and felt like I had run a marathon through Kuala Lumpur! The only downside to the day was the weather and having had the previous weekend well over 100 today it was grey and wet with the temperature getting to all of 65!
The weather continued in the same vein the next day and I set out on my bike early to try and beat the rain, not a chance. Fortunately I had switched out my windjacket for some Goretex but my legs and butt where well exposed (not in the biblical sense) but hey when you're wet; you're wet. I changed up the scenery this weekend and took a slightly different route, out through Kanan, gingerly crossing the bridge where I had buckled my wheel and then back up though Malibu Canyon, which is usually the down outbound leg, it made for an interesting ride seeing everything backwards as such, but by mile 35 I was feeling it, there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of up (ok and one really big down!), a light dinner the night before and a bagel for breakfast hadn’t really topped off my tank and in spite of having four Hammer gels, a bar and a couple of bottles of fluid (Perpetuem/Amino Vital) by the time 
I got home ten miles later I was done in. Here's the MotionBased data. My bike was filthy and so I gave it a wash down and wax up and was finishing up just as my wife arrived back with the boys and so with the help of the eldest we went on to wash and wax both cars as, of course, by this time the sun had come out! Saturday night we had friends over for a BBQ, eaten inside as it really wasn’t that warm and the steak and beer slipped down a treat, although by 11pm I was so tired I was actually slipping down the chair myself!
Sunday day drifted by as they do and Sunday night I headed out for a 13 mile run, my legs were feeling a little tired and by mile 6 they were nagging, by mile 8 it was painful and by mile 11 I was stopping every quarter mile to give them some massage and generally swear at them, I would have kicked them in frustration but that would only be a really short term remedy! I dropped two ibuprofen en route but it was too little too late to make any real difference, I cut the run short by a quarter mile and went off into the corner to stretch and sulk. This knee business is really starting to get my goat and despite the cross and core (which I admit slipped a little last week) I am still having knee issues, not ITB, just knee.
Monday was a rest day. I hung out with the boys all day, they're a little under the weather so having some quiet time was a good thing for everyone. My wife was out all day hiking up Mt Baldy, she was ambushed by the snow and was grateful to have worn her boots rather than hiking shoes! She didn’t get back to late, and in the evening I hit the foam roller for a session; pummeling quads, hams, calves and the like into some form of submission and compliance.
Tuesday night I headed out, unusually for me, I managed to get out before it was dark and I had a great 7.5 mile run, at an easy pace, but I focused a lot on listening to my knees; they're very chatty you know. I was concentrating on staying on the right pace and in the right heart rate zone and thinking about my form and footstrike, I am not a heavy heel striker, I think somewhere between heel and forefoot would be a good description, maybe if I have time (yeah right) I'll check out the chi or pose running methods. Of course my knee pain on Sunday could have been caused by just the cycling the day before…maybe? And that brings us up today. My other knee, not Sunday night's one is a little achy, see how annoying is that that they get together and change it up overnight, it's a conspiracy I tell you!
This week I have to mix up the training a bit, I have an organized bike ride on Saturday, I hope this picture was taken from a plane as either way if it is to top on a climb or decent it’s already giving me the heeby-jeebies. I am definitely up for the metric century (62 miles) and may do the 100 mile ride; maybe. So that means I’ll rest on Friday and combine Friday and Saturday’s cross training into one session; see that's nice and tidy.
Like Zanne I am really enjoying my cycling at the moment, it's pain free so there's a bargain for you, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I am being adulterous at the moment, it's more like dating twins!
Ok that’s it for now, catch (in deference to Frayed Laces) y'all later.
The weather continued in the same vein the next day and I set out on my bike early to try and beat the rain, not a chance. Fortunately I had switched out my windjacket for some Goretex but my legs and butt where well exposed (not in the biblical sense) but hey when you're wet; you're wet. I changed up the scenery this weekend and took a slightly different route, out through Kanan, gingerly crossing the bridge where I had buckled my wheel and then back up though Malibu Canyon, which is usually the down outbound leg, it made for an interesting ride seeing everything backwards as such, but by mile 35 I was feeling it, there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of up (ok and one really big down!), a light dinner the night before and a bagel for breakfast hadn’t really topped off my tank and in spite of having four Hammer gels, a bar and a couple of bottles of fluid (Perpetuem/Amino Vital) by the time 
I got home ten miles later I was done in. Here's the MotionBased data. My bike was filthy and so I gave it a wash down and wax up and was finishing up just as my wife arrived back with the boys and so with the help of the eldest we went on to wash and wax both cars as, of course, by this time the sun had come out! Saturday night we had friends over for a BBQ, eaten inside as it really wasn’t that warm and the steak and beer slipped down a treat, although by 11pm I was so tired I was actually slipping down the chair myself!Sunday day drifted by as they do and Sunday night I headed out for a 13 mile run, my legs were feeling a little tired and by mile 6 they were nagging, by mile 8 it was painful and by mile 11 I was stopping every quarter mile to give them some massage and generally swear at them, I would have kicked them in frustration but that would only be a really short term remedy! I dropped two ibuprofen en route but it was too little too late to make any real difference, I cut the run short by a quarter mile and went off into the corner to stretch and sulk. This knee business is really starting to get my goat and despite the cross and core (which I admit slipped a little last week) I am still having knee issues, not ITB, just knee.
Monday was a rest day. I hung out with the boys all day, they're a little under the weather so having some quiet time was a good thing for everyone. My wife was out all day hiking up Mt Baldy, she was ambushed by the snow and was grateful to have worn her boots rather than hiking shoes! She didn’t get back to late, and in the evening I hit the foam roller for a session; pummeling quads, hams, calves and the like into some form of submission and compliance.Tuesday night I headed out, unusually for me, I managed to get out before it was dark and I had a great 7.5 mile run, at an easy pace, but I focused a lot on listening to my knees; they're very chatty you know. I was concentrating on staying on the right pace and in the right heart rate zone and thinking about my form and footstrike, I am not a heavy heel striker, I think somewhere between heel and forefoot would be a good description, maybe if I have time (yeah right) I'll check out the chi or pose running methods. Of course my knee pain on Sunday could have been caused by just the cycling the day before…maybe? And that brings us up today. My other knee, not Sunday night's one is a little achy, see how annoying is that that they get together and change it up overnight, it's a conspiracy I tell you!
This week I have to mix up the training a bit, I have an organized bike ride on Saturday, I hope this picture was taken from a plane as either way if it is to top on a climb or decent it’s already giving me the heeby-jeebies. I am definitely up for the metric century (62 miles) and may do the 100 mile ride; maybe. So that means I’ll rest on Friday and combine Friday and Saturday’s cross training into one session; see that's nice and tidy.Like Zanne I am really enjoying my cycling at the moment, it's pain free so there's a bargain for you, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I am being adulterous at the moment, it's more like dating twins!
Ok that’s it for now, catch (in deference to Frayed Laces) y'all later.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
An accidental cross trainer...no more!
This weeks “Take it and run Thursday” from Runners Lounge is about cross training, no not running about in a state of angriness that’s another post altogether but the oft acknowledged but then completely overlooked art of complimentary training to your running. Now I confess that my history in this field is somewhat accidental, without any real effort I found myself cross training and now with hindsight I can see the benefits that it brought to my sport.While I have run on and off for years I have also been a frequent cyclist, either on the road or on the trails, in fact for four years or so my mountain bike and I traveled many of the trails in the Santa Monica mountains that I now find my self running. In between cycling I would run and so without any real conscious effort on my part I was cross training. Looking back, apart from the injuries caused by impact; head on rock, knee on bush, hands on trail and the like; I was actually “injury” free for that whole period of time. Last year when I was down with ITB issues my PT was happy for me to jump on my bike and put in the miles of course as I came out of the injury pipeline into recovery biking fell by the wayside and running took the main stage again and like a dolt I forgot a lot of the important lessons that I had learned. Well if the definition of an idiot is someone who is doomed to repeat their mistakes over and over then that was me as I went down in March with ITB problems…again. This time I was able to manage the problem and stop it in its tracks allowing me to complete my 'A' race for the spring but it was a close call.
Now there are not too many training programs that take you to 50 miles and beyond as a runner and so when I found myself constructing mine for my fall 'A' race I made sure to include a large proportion of miles dedicated to cross training, in my instance cycling and core body workouts which addresses not only the core but many of the joints and stabilizing muscles, I actually have a ratio of around 1:1.3 run miles to bike miles for the plan and I work on my core 6 days a week
For me there are two benefits; mental and physical. Mentally; if you do enough of one thing you’ll get bored, a little variation keeps the blade sharp and interest level high, additionally the range on a bike is so much more than running; at least for now. Physically; the benefit to me in cycling is the balance it provides in developing the muscle groups in my legs. It’s probably incorrect to state that these muscles are running and those are cycling as they are all interconnected and work in conjunction with each other and additionally there are muscles in the core and upper body that are used in both sports but here we are talking about everything below the waist. The reality is that the main muscle groups used when running are your calves, hamstrings and glutes; with the hamstrings doing most of the work. If you think about it the hamstrings, calves and glutes are on the back of your leg, that’s because the motion of running is propelling or pushing. In addition to the above groups when you hop on your bike you start to incorporate the largest muscles in your legs, in fact they are the largest in you body; your quadriceps. The quads come into play when cycling as you are also pulling, they don’t play a role in running until you start running hills, this is when they come into their own, you may have heard people talking about their quads “being mashed” after a long downhill stretch taken at speed, so ignore them at your peril.
Now in addition to the main muscle groups in the legs there are lots of smaller interconnected stabilizing muscles that hold things together (like your hips, knees and ankles) as well as the ligaments and tendons etc that all play an important role and all need to have some attention levied at them; think balance and wobble boards, stretching plyometrics, core strengthening exercises and the like. Check out some of the books in the widget thing in the sidebar. While I profess to be no expert and this is all based on my experience and my second hand knowledge the benefits of cross training are a pretty well accepted standard, just look at the FIRST training program. You may want to know why I choose cycling over swimming which is a great alternative, the answer is simple I have the aquatic characteristics of a large stone!
The message here is run all the time and your will develop all the things that help you run and ignore all the rest. Cycle all the time, ditto. Mixing it up actually benefits you overall training, ignore it and you may end up injured, sidelined and just cross!
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