I had a down week last week and it was frustrating. I had my "orthotics" pretty dialed in so I decided to permanently affix them into my shoes. Taping them didn't work all that well and I ended up making them thicker on accident and had a bit of a setback. I've reworked them and they seem ok now but I missed 4 days of training.
Out of frustration I hit the trails yesterday and ran 10 miles pretty hard. I did the difficult run/CCT loop. I normally hit the road by route 7 in around 33:30 my record was 31:26. yesterday I went through at 29:12 but I pretty much exploded a mile later and really crawled to the finish in 1:08:12 pretty fast still for the trails.
I went back to that physical therapist and got some good treatments on my knees. He's having me quit yoga and stretching my quads. Stretching the hamstrings and lower back is ok. He thinks I'm irritating the tendon stretching the quads. He gave me some icing strategies, some new exercises, and instead of stretching I'm supposed to use the foam roller like crazy. I'm also supposed to stop the seated leg extensions. Instead I'm supposed to do really slow single legs squats with my other leg sticking out at different angles.
After my treatment we decided we'd get back to work on my form. Now that I'm in pretty solid shape we figured we'd try again. Last time there were just too many variables. Trying to figure out shoes, orthotics, form, turnover, and get in shape all at once was frustrating the crap out of me. He had me run 180 strides per minute. It felt weird for a bit but I did 4 miles with him recording my form and having me try different things. My right arm/shoulder needs some work so he gave me this green band thing and some exercises to start doing. Probably due to broken collarbone as a kid. Mostly everything else was due to pigeon toe compensation but nothing that seemed counterproductive.
One things for sure. A few weeks of consistent short slow runs everyday has my fitness up. It doesn't feel like I'm doing much but the consistency is showing promise. I need to quit with the long runs because my form falls apart, I bounce, and my knees pay the price. I'll keep with the 180 cadence until it feels more natural. Then I can slow it slightly to do slower runs and add miles.
Yah, if you look at the real buildup periods of the greats, it is not done with any days that take them too far outside of their daily average mileage. Keep going easy every day and build up over the winter. My two best periods of my career came from a winter of 7 to 8 miles easy every day. When I went to race after that base, in only three or four weeks it just all fell in place....
ReplyDelete