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Arthur ran 13 miles this Sunday..he didn't feel that great during the last 6 miles of the CIM, but this shows he's recovering amazingly quickly. He's about to move to the 70-74 AG and I'm sure he's going to clean up with podium finishes even more than he was already.
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It's a week later and I'm over my race fatigue and the AT. I've basically done nothing except some walking, foam roller and hot soaks. I did one XT day Friday and other today (Monday) with strength training upper and lower. Felt pretty good... the leg muscles are gradually lengthening back out
I could go running but I'm going to take it very easy getting back into it...there is no rush.
To reduce the AT I plan to do a boat-load of eccentric leg lowering exercises. After googling around, I think I was just not doing enough of these. During training I was doing 2x15 on each leg, twice a week. I plan to build up to 2x30 on each leg, every other day. Once I can do that, I'll started adding some weight in a backpack of something to increase the load.
If you remember back when I got dunked, I also had notions back in May of losing some body fat before my PR attempt.
Once I started training in earnest, I realized this was not going to work...doing drills, strength training, weights, hill sprints etc as well as boosting mileage was just too much for me to add in a calorie deficit as well.
It just didn't make sense..with all the muscle I was adding I was sometimes *ravenous*. Somedays I would come home from work and want to make dinner at 5pm!...this did not go over well with Toni ...8)
I actually gained a few pounds before CIM, I weighed myself at 176lbs (vs 172-ish during my dunk tank experience). Just judging from the fat I can pinch around my midsection I think this was all muscle gain.
Anyway, I think this down time is a good time to finally lose a bit of fat (and keep the muscle), the mileage will be down but the strength training will be maxed out.
The next race is Eugene at the end of April. Tentatively, I am considering shooting for a 5-10s per mile faster pace..i.e. 3:54 perhaps...this would be running at 8:50 or so on the Garmin.
Many people ask me about the "BQ" question. Sigh. For my age a BQ is a 3:40 marathon. This is not going to happen unless I win the lottery and can do nothing but train and be looked after for a year or two by a team of specialists ;)
[There is only one hope for me and a BQ: If I can run a sub-3:55, and keep doing that for 4 more years until I'm 60, THAT is then a BQ. If you think that sounds easier than running a 3:40 now, it's not. Running a 3:55 at age 60 is basically the same...each year you should be getting a bit slower. So, I do get to sneak up on the big effort by training to hold the time each year.
Jill says you can improve in the marathon for about 10 years, and I'm only 3 years in so maybe....who knows?
But the whole BQ thing usually never enters my thoughts, mostly I want to see how fast I can go (carefully)... I'm happy to be running marathons period and mostly want to run them for fun, not PRs.]
Garmin
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Here's the list of stuff I want to get done before Eugene:
- Get rid of AT even during hard training
- Lose at least 5 lbs of fat before Eugene
- Take some swimming lessons for freestyle
I did remember to cross of 'set new PR in marathon sub-4' from my "Sporting Goals" list 8)
And here I thought when my heart rates disappeared on the Garmin site it was just me.
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