Monday, February 20, 2006

Its baaack!

The wandering sidebar is back where it belongs and I have fixed the problem - gosh, I wish the rest of my life was that easy!

Its a rest day today and also my regular visit to the physio. The elbow-in-the glute treatment was applied as well as more spinal twisting and massage.

I've borrowed some words from Bolder's blog which I think are very relevant and that I probably should take notice of more often!

"From this March 'Runners World' magazine: "Running doesn't make your fitter. If it did -- if you actually got fitter while you ran -- you would be stronger in the last mile of a marathon than the first... It's recovering from running that makes you fitter. The stress of running flips a number of hormonal and genetic switches in your body, allowing it to adapt to ways that make you better prepared for the next workout. But these adaptations occur only when your body is at rest."

************************************
Looking back - Road to IM 2004
48 days to go

Workout 1 - long swim
Time - 6am Civic pool
Distance - 3.5km
Duration - 1hr 17min

I found the first kilometre was okay but the second kilometre was hard work, and the third kilometre I lost count, so could've swum further than I thought. It was a case of "60 laps.....hang on, was it 62 laps; no, didn't I pass that woman who is breastroking down the MIDDLE of the lane and not moving over, on the 61st lap, oh hell, 62 laps and be done with it". I swam an extra 100m just to be sure I'd done enough - that's my obsessive-compulsive streak coming through. Anyway, was feeling quite tired.

Workout 2 - Medium run, North Lyneham
Time - 6pm, with JD and Strewth. It was warm with a strong easterly wind blowing.
Distance - about 16km
Duration - 1hr 50.19min

For people who are not familiar with this course, its an undulating off-road 3km with a killer hill that goes on and on and ever upwards. We ran 5 laps of this course today. It was a good run and I had no problems. I worked hard up THAT hill 5 times, visualising the hills on the IM marathon course - it was not going to beat me!

9 comments:

Black Knight said...

Long swim and sorry if I disagree but 16 km are a long run. Good job. About the rest you wrote wise words, I learned to rest after a hard workout (or race) instead of pushing and it worked and works.

Toasty said...

Undulating ..... no such word ... they are hills ... big hills!

Hilda said...

How did you find the side bar? Did you make what Ckiff said, or you was there again?
The worst is when they "explain" you how to get it back and you just don't unserstand a word like me.

I am enjoying myself a lot more resting and as said before, combining it every three weeks. I just thought not many in the blogsphere were going to be agree with that article, specially you that are always building up so much!! You just move from the Tri trainning to the marathon like that!

Tesso said...

Hey CJ, I like those words you posted about rest days! I don't recall reading that in RW but will dig it out and have another look.

This looking back on IM is fun to follow. I don't know your result so its almost like its happening right now. I can't wait to read the report of the actual race!

speedygeoff said...

Write out 100 times "It's recovering from running that makes you fitter". Just as TV is a whole lot of ads peppered with a few show segments, so running is a whole lot of recovery interspersed with the occasional training session.

RunDave said...

That is a very very good point. One that I will think about a lot more.

Hey, if I run faster in training, it means I'll have more time to recover! ;)

Katie said...

Very wise words... something we dont do enough of!!! My program is definately light on the rest days.

Ellie80 said...

Love it. Now it is a good thing if I don't get out of bed early!
E

Rae said...

I liked the RW quote. I thought it was such a great perspective on the marathon!