The Boston Marathon is coming up on April 15th. When the marathon comes, so doesn't a whole bunch of blogs and training tips from runners. I actually found one run very interesting, it is by Shalane Flanagan (actually it is an interview) and really shed some light on my training. You can read it on Boston.com at:
http://www.boston.com/sports/marathon/blog/2013/04/shalane_flanagan_on_boston_mar.html
Shalane is rated the #1 American Female Marathoner and is expected to be in the lead group right to the end of the race. It opened my eyes to know that she feels that "a little bit less can be a little bit more" when dealing with training. Well, knowing that I am coming off a back injury and still dealing with getting my body in shape, I decided that I needed to scale back my workouts some. Typically I would try to run race speed every time I go out, mainly because I only run 4 days a week right now. That and I have always been under the "give 110%" mindset and that doesn't really work with running.
That brings us to today's run. The dogs were begging (literally) to get out this morning. Considering I usually run slower with them and have to take AnnaBelle pee breaks, it was the perfect morning to start varying the intensity of my training. So today I ran "The Loop" at about 75-80%. "The Loop" is posted in the maps section, it is a route that works really well for me. The hard thing about it is there are spots that are not lit, thankfully my wonderful wife found my headlamp to go out with. BTW, if you are driving at a point with morning or night where you have your lights on, you see a runner and decide to put your high beams on in order to "give better light".....don't. It literally blinds the oncoming runner, which happened three times this morning. Which stinks because not only do you have to wait for the car to go by, you then need to wait for your eyes to readjust to low light levels so you don't twist an ankle.
Today's workout started differently. I decided to have a different breakfast of toasted Country Kitchen oatmeal bread with peanut butter and 1 cup of cottage cheese, which my 12 oz cup of black coffee. I then had 8 oz of cranberry juice about 1/2 hour before running. Knowing that I wanted to do a slower run and less miles I felt this was a decent breakfast. I did not have an issue with energy or strength, however I am starting to notice some issues with my lower right leg. It was pretty sore, but not in the normal shin splint area, a little more in the inside and back. I think I am going to look into a compression sleeve for it to see if that helps a little more with my stretching and massages.
Saturday I am planning out a route for a little over 10 miles. I will post that map at some point. I plan on getting out pretty early and then head to my home town not long after. So I probably won't get a post up until that night.
Enjoy your day!
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