Mileage Reporting 42nd week of 2012

[happysongbird]

In other areas, I feel like having a family is forcing me to become a drill sergeant.

A bit of that is good for the kids. My grown kids, even my 16 year old, regularly roll their eyes at other kids lack of discipline. Kids thrive with complete, accepting love combined with the parents being solidly in charge. Is that what you are talking about? Perhaps you would find this encouraging: http://dailyimprovisations.com/parenting-with-a-plan/

 

[Barefoot Dama]

For me today was my weekly stairs wotkout and some back/hip stuff.

 

[NickW]

1/2 hour on the stationary bike and then an hour doing weights in the gym. Today was chest, biceps, and triceps day. Knee is still a little tender so tomorrow I may just ride the stationary again instead of run. We'll see though as tomorrow is my birthday and if I can I would still love to get my run in.

 

[Bare Lee]

A bit of that is good for the kids. My grown kids, even my 16 year old, regularly roll their eyes at other kids lack of discipline. Kids thrive with complete, accepting love combined with the parents being solidly in charge. Is that what you are talking about? Perhaps you would find this encouraging: http://dailyimprovisations.com/parenting-with-a-plan/

Thanks for the link Laura, nicely stated. I agree with you about 90%. We've only spanked a few times, when the kids have done dangerous things, but I'm still in the early stages of the parenting game, so maybe I'll come around to your point of view on that. We mostly just withdraw privileges or ground our daughter, but our son is still quite young so we'll see how that goes. Boys seem like they're a lot more work when they're young. Otherwise we're in agreement about having the proper mix of affectionate love and firm discipline. So many parents (like our across-the-street-neighbors!) seem to be afraid to discipline their kids these days, but they're not doing anyone any favors. The disciplining part is a drag, but so necessary, and it pays dividends quickly. I find love is far more important than discipline though. It almost becomes painful for the kids to displease you when you shower them with love all the time.

 

[Bare Lee]

Walked my 2.2 miles yesterday picking up the kids with a stroller. My knee-tweak felt a little nigglish mid-walk, but then settled down. No pain whatsoever afterwards and today when I woke up the niggle was negligible. The knee was nearly niggleless. So when I went down for my chest strength training and felt burnt out at about the 175 lb mark on my bench press, unmotivated to work up to max weight after too many consecutive weights workouts over the last two weeks, I decided I mis'well get the running up and running one day earlier than planned and go out and test the knee. I just ran .8 miles, but it felt fine. I iced it right afterwards just in case. And now I've smeared some Penetrex over the niggleful spot. I guess I won't know fur sure how it responded until tomorrow, but if everything goes well, I'll try two miles on Saturday. Good lord, this not-running business is driving me nuts. Still, the time off to rethink my strength training was probably a good thing, and the overtraining has been beneficial. It was a good stimulus. But today it felt like I was going to start to see negative results if I continued with the everyday ST workouts much longer. Thank god this knee injury wasn't serious (knock on wood).

 

[NickW]

Lee, just keep in mind that you did have a slight niggle in the knee during the walk and it sounds like you still have a little, even if it is very miniscule, and maybe do a very slow ramp up in miles. Maybe only increase a half mile instead of nearly 1.25 and go from there every time you run. I know, it's the pot calling the kettle black here (why would I ever listen to my own advice?) so do what you will. Actually, upon some reflection, I do listen to my own advice, for the first week or two... Once I prove to myself I can do it then I tend to lose the fear of re-injury.

 

[Bare Lee]

Lee, just keep in mind that you did have a slight niggle in the knee during the walk and it sounds like you still have a little, even if it is very miniscule, and maybe do a very slow ramp up in miles. Maybe only increase a half mile instead of nearly 1.25 and go from there every time you run. I know, it's the pot calling the kettle black here (why would I ever listen to my own advice?) so do what you will. Actually, upon some reflection, I do listen to my own advice, for the first week or two... Once I prove to myself I can do it then I tend to lose the fear of re-injury.

Yah, thanks Nick. Assuming I don't experience any setbacks, I will definitely be building up the mileage slowly. I may try another short run before adding, we'll see how it feels tomorrow. And then once I get to three or four miles, I may just keep it there for a few weeks to make sure everything is all set. This is a lot different from the top of the foot pain I had, which was cumulative muscle tightness. This time it was an acute injury, involving some kind of tissue trauma, whereas the tofp involved inflammation. As soon as the inflammation went down, I felt confident running more, but the tissue trauma I have now will still take some time to fully heal, and is vulnerable to re-injury, I realize. I'll be running through the final healing, but not much, and the extra motion may be therapeutic to the healing process at this point. I also got a knee brace and wore that today and will for the next few weeks at least. At the slightest sign of renewed pain, I'll back off, mos' definitely.

 

[Abide]

3 and a half miles or so in some new shoes, they are a little heavier than I expected.

 

[jldeleon]

1/2 hour on the stationary bike and then an hour doing weights in the gym. Today was chest, biceps, and triceps day. Knee is still a little tender so tomorrow I may just ride the stationary again instead of run. We'll see though as tomorrow is my birthday and if I can I would still love to get my run in.

Birthday runs are important! But be careful!

 

[NickW]

Birthday runs are important! But be careful!

Oh trust me, first sign of a niggle and I'm walking my butt back to the gym to ride the bike. Stupid hidden acorns.

 

[happysongbird]

I'm a bit shocked. I just ran a 4 mile tempo run with these times:

mile 1 - 8mm pace
mile 2 - 7:55 pace
mile 3 to 4 - I thought I had better back off just a bit considering that is the fastest I have ever timed myself for 2 miles in my whole life that I recall. I kept hearing all my barefoot friends voices in my head saying don't over do it and only kept an 8:30mm pace for the next 2 miles.
last 1/2 mile - cool down at about 9:30 pace

One of the fun things about it was that I felt like I was handling the aerobic part of it decently. Sure, I was exchanging some oxygen, but I felt like if the pads of my toes were more conditioned and my legs used to more miles, I could have kept going. Of course, that is only a theory at this point.

Then I rode the spinning bike for 45 minutes. whoopee!

 

[Barefooting Bob]

Oops, I forgot to post for the last few days, well here we go

I have run notta, zip, zilch, zero, nil, none. Not sure what happened, but no time to run couldn't even break away at work for a quick jaunt around the neighbourhood. I am now very. But tomorrow is a new day and I am going to run lots, really far and it will make me very

 

[Bare Lee]

Full 'Front' (chest and arms) strength training. Unlike yesterday's abandoned attempt, today I had good energy. My short .8-mile run yesterday did me a lot of good. Strength training with no running is yang without the yin, er, well, something like that. One really sets up the other nicely. After a summer of entertaining thoughts about become a more serious, high-mileage runner, I've gone back to the one day weights/one day running routine of old. It feels right for me. But it was good to experiment and think things through, and now I have a more systematic approach and a few modest performance goals.

My knee feels good today, not any different than yesterday, which is good. Still a little stiff, but no real pain. Nonetheless, I've already iced it four times since I woke up, and I've been slathering Dama's recommended Tropicin lotion potion religiously after each icing, working out the last niggleness before my next run. The only pain now comes when there's a little lateral pressure, like when I cross my legs, which is easy to avoid. Still, I'm going to hold off until Sunday before my next run, and just do my Back ST day tomorrow, so I can begin the week with my newly formulated weekly routine. It starts with the new 'Bottom' or legs strength-training day:

1. Jog to track
2.Bounding
3.Skipping
4.Run backwards
5.Jog home
6. Plyo box: front, side, step
7.Plyo Box: Hip hike
8.Plyometrics bench hop
9.Broad Jump
10.Vertical Jump variations
11.Leg extensions & curls
12. Kicks

Before everyone starts warning me to take it easy with the knee, what I'll end up doing is a reduced version like this

1. Jog to track .6 mi.
2.Bounding 50-100 yards
3.Skipping 50-100 yards
4.Run backwards 100-220 yards
5.Jog home .6 mi.
so total mileage just 1.5 miles or so
6. Plyo box: front, side, step low reps, just 6" box
7.Plyo Box: Hip hike
8.Leg extensions & curls no weight
9. Kicks in air

Nice times btw Laura! I'm thinking that after I build up to 3 miles or so I may keep things there for a while and just work on pace until I can do 8mm too. I read that the Kenyans work on pace first, and then add distance, and that seems like the intuitively correct way for me to proceed as well. I've been thinking along these lines for a while now, but now that I've learned that pros do it, I feel like I have license to try it in earnest and forget distance for a while. This might be a good plan while I'm finishing rehabbing the knee too.

Anyway, good to be back in business. After just two weeks, it felt like it had been forever since I last ran when I was starting out yesterday . . .

 

[Abide]

Yeah thanks for the belated warning I am still pretty sore after my skips and bounds wednesday. Funny enough the sides of my pecs are the most sore. The hamstrings and calves are finally strecthing out again.

 

[Bare Lee]

1/2 hour on the stationary bike and then an hour doing weights in the gym. Today was chest, biceps, and triceps day. Knee is still a little tender so tomorrow I may just ride the stationary again instead of run. We'll see though as tomorrow is my birthday and if I can I would still love to get my run in.

Yah, the last two birthdays I've made sure to go on a run. It's a nice little ritual, along with shaving my head, not to mention the steak and wine.

 

[Bare Lee]

Yeah thanks for the belated warning I am still pretty sore after my skips and bounds wednesday. Funny enough the sides of my pecs are the most sore. The hamstrings and calves are finally strecthing out again.

Cool to hear you're giving them a try too. How did you find it while doing them? And what surface did you do them on? The track I want to do them on is a kind of sandy gravel, which will be abrasive on the skips, but probably good conditioning. I'm sure I'll look like a real yahoo.

 

[Abide]

Cool to hear you're giving them a try too. How did you find it while doing them? And what surface did you do them on? The track I want to do them on is a kind of sandy gravel, which will be abrasive on the skips, but probably good conditioning. I'm sure I'll look like a real yahoo.

At first I was pretty clumsy but then I loosened up and was getting some good height and distance. I did 8 sets of ten consecutive leg hops as high and far as I could and then about 200m of bounds. I did it on grass, I tried on concrete but after the first couple of hops I realized grass is a much better idea. I am still dealing with a stress fracture in my foot so it may be fine for you on the track.

It literally took me a good 4-5 sets of hops to get warmed up though.

 

[Bare Lee]

At first I was pretty clumsy but then I loosened up and was getting some good height and distance. I did 8 sets of ten consecutive leg hops as high and far as I could and then about 200m of bounds. I did it on grass, I tried on concrete but after the first couple of hops I realized grass is a much better idea. I am still dealing with a stress fracture in my foot so it may be fine for you on the track.

It literally took me a good 4-5 sets of hops to get warmed up though.

Yah, I'm expecting slow going at first and some awkwardness until I get the hang of this too. Might be best to try it on grass, like you, or keep the height and distance of bounds minimal while my legs figure out what they're doing. Don't want anything to shear off . Next spring I may even try some cutting type exercises between yard lines, but I got a lot on my plate right now as it is. Didn't know about the stress fracture, hope the healing proceeds well . . .

 

[NickW]

I read that the Kenyans work on pace first, and then add distance, and that seems like the intuitively correct way for me to proceed as well. I've been thinking along these lines for a while now, but now that I've learned that pros do it, I feel like I have license to try it in earnest and forget distance for a while. This might be a good plan while I'm finishing rehabbing the knee too.

I firmly believe this is the way to do it, for me. Hopefully it works for you. As far as the knee I wasn't gonna give you anymore grief about it, I did that yesterday or whenever it was.

 

[Bare Lee]

I firmly believe this is the way to do it, for me. Hopefully it works for you. As far as the knee I wasn't gonna give you anymore grief about it, I did that yesterday or whenever it was.

Yah, we've been discussing this since last spring, right? -- Feeling downtrodden with plodding beyond yonder. It'll be interesting to see where we are in a year's time.