The 3rd time's a charm!

Hope the rest of the week goes better for you. I remember being home with Hannah when she got sick as a little kid. It's not always pleasant, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Hope the sick one gets better soon!



Hope the taper goes well for you!

So, the munchkin was much better by the time I picked her up late Friday morning. She slept a lot this weekend, but is pretty much back to 100%. That was the good part of the weekend.

The workout Thursday, while it went very well, left me a bit trashed unfortunately. Specifically, the old piriformis problem has flared up with a vengeance. I gimped through 4 miles Friday and 6 miles a little less gimpily (is that even a word?) on Saturday. I had no idea what I'd be able to get through today, with the plan being 20 and if I was feeling good, finishing with 5 @ MP.

I was ready to bag it at about 3 miles, but I started feeling a bit better and decided to avoid coming home at the end of my first 10 mile loop to resist temptation of just calling it a day there. The trails right by my house are the rock and tar variety and I was working much harder on that surface than I was on the other 7 or so miles that are smooth blacktop. Not aerobically or leg wise, but my piriformis and hip flexors were both less than happy with me. It got a bit better once I got back to the blacktop and I decided to crank it up to MP at the beginning of mile 15. The good part was the fact that even at MP, I wasn't working that hard either physically or aerobically, so I'm confident of my endurance and speed at this point. I am, however, concerned about this piriformis and hip flexor issue. I'm already being very aggressive with stretching and exercises, so hopefully things will loosen up a bit over the next 2 weeks and I'll have a shot at actually attempting goal pace.

At any rate, I ended up going 19 with 3 @ MP and outside of my hips and piriformis being really sore right now, I feel great otherwise. Even without the MP miles thrown in, I would have averaged under 8:00 miles so it was a good run overall despite the pain I was in. Oh well, bring on taper and I'm going to have to be creative about getting in miles and intensity and trying to get healthy over the next couple weeks.

I am glad to hear that the little one is feeling better and an excellent 19 miler, as well. Bring on taper!! All of those little niggles will melt away and race day is gonna be something special...

Nick Morris wrote:Bring on taper!! All of those little niggles will melt away and race day is gonna be something special...

Man, I sure hope so. I'll be pissed if all the miles I put in this summer go to waste due to a stupid little injury.

Like I said, I've been aggressive with the stretching and exercises, grinding a tennis ball into the piriformis to get the knot out of it. Between that, stretching, and getting back to doing the exercises, I think I'm managing it pretty well. I was able to get in 5 miles last night and by the time I finished, everything had loosened up nicely and I felt pretty good. I'm still a little sore this morning in the hip flexor and lower ab areas, but generally I'm a lot better off than I thought I'd be at this point. I'm going to have to be diligent about the stretching and exercises to ward this thing off, but hopefully I can get back to relatively normal before Chicago.

I've found that really staying on top of stretching will take care of just about any niggle that's muscle-related. Hopefully you find the same. Taper taper taper!

Glad your daughter is back to normal - feel bad for them when they are sick. Great (last I assume?) long run pacewise. It is totally not fair for you that something flairs up now, but at least you know what it is and it sounds like you have a handle on it. Interesting that you felt bad enough to think about ending Sunday's run at mile 3, but was able to bust out another 16 at that pace with a fast finish. Good job and keep up the stretching - your rounding third and headed home!

Speaking of which, they dug themselves probably too deep of a hole, but the Cards amazingly still have a chance....

John Kilpatrick wrote:Glad your daughter is back to normal - feel bad for them when they are sick. Great (last I assume?) long run pacewise. It is totally not fair for you that something flairs up now, but at least you know what it is and it sounds like you have a handle on it. Interesting that you felt bad enough to think about ending Sunday's run at mile 3, but was able to bust out another 16 at that pace with a fast finish. Good job and keep up the stretching - your rounding third and headed home!

Speaking of which, they dug themselves probably too deep of a hole, but the Cards amazingly still have a chance....

Well, I have a noticeably higher pain tolerance than most, so that definitely helps. I was in a pretty good amount of discomfort for pretty much the entire run but I figured since it was the last long one, any damage I did I'd be able to recover from in plenty of time.

As for the Cards, I just hope my Cubbies come in here this weekend and crush their hopes and dreams. That would at least be something to salvage out of an otherwise awful season.

mul21 wrote:As for the Cards, I just hope my Cubbies come in here this weekend and crush their hopes and dreams. That would at least be something to salvage out of an otherwise awful season.

That is just mean

For that, you get this:

[img][/img]

Nobody likes you very much John! And watch yourself, Dave-O is a mod and a huge Cubs fan, you might find yourself banned if you're not careful!

Mike MacLellan wrote:I've found that really staying on top of stretching will take care of just about any niggle that's muscle-related. Hopefully you find the same. Taper taper taper!

+1.

Jim,

I think you have a good hold on this niggle and it won't affect you at all as you taper and toe the line soon. Just continue to work the solution. Maintain what you can either way your goal will be met!

mul21 wrote:Nobody likes you very much John! And watch yourself, Dave-O is a mod and a huge Cubs fan, you might find yourself banned if you're not careful!

So "Cuck the Fubs" is something that I shouldn't say

or

Sorry Jim...had to do it.



But seriously, like Kenny said. I think you are on top of the niggle and taper will help take care of it.

Nick, nobody likes you very much either!

I guess at least the Brewers didn't clinch at Wrigley this week. And it'll be sweet if the Cubs can manage to crush the Cardinals hopes and dreams while they're in town this weekend.

Anyway, on to running. After getting some of the kinks worked out of the piriformis on Monday and Tuesday, I had a pretty smooth and easy run on Tuesday night where I average 8:11 miles with very little effort for a 7 mile run.

Last night was 400s. I was supposed to do 12-16 of them depending on how the piriformis was feeling and between the effort level going up and the piriformis tightening up a bit, I stopped after 12. They were all 1;27-1:29 except #12 which slipped to 1:30 with a minute in between each of them. I guess had I thought about doing what Chris did (a longer break between sets of 4) I probably could have done another 4, but oh well, maybe next time. I can tell I did something a little higher turnover rate last night and the piriformis is a bit tight today, but nothing too bad. Some stretching and rolling tonight should calm it down a bit.

Nice running Jim. Keep an eye on your piriformis.

A few posters better watch themselves and the slanderous images being posted. I'm sharpening the banhammer...

Dave-O wrote:A few posters better watch themselves and the slanderous images being posted. I'm sharpening the banhammer...

HAHAHAHA...Yes sir...Hopefully they stick it to the Cards in this upcoming series...

12-16 x 400's seems quite high what is the purpose right now with vo2max this late in the cycle? Crazy workout!

Kenny B. wrote:12-16 x 400's seems quite high what is the purpose right now with vo2max this late in the cycle? Crazy workout!

Not a ton of VO2 benefit, but more to get some pop back in the legs at the end of the cycle. I was really struggling with fast stuff a few weeks ago and now that I've done a few more workouts at faster paces, the legs are coming around and I'm feeling smoother. Plus, it make MP feel not near as tough.

Allright, here's my random thought of the day and Jim's blog is where this lands...



So I assume most of you have seen the whole nonsense from the Giants game this last weekend where two different players faked injuries and dropped to the ground to stall and delay the other team's hurry up offense. It really is as bad as the worst aspect of international soccer with guys falling to the ground with phantom injuries and then of course popping right back up and being able to play with no problem after that. So what should the NFL do? You can't force teams to take a timeout every time someone gets legitmately hurt. Teams would run out of timeouts. You also can't really judge what injuries are fake/real either out on the field or even afterwards. So here's my invented solution:



If you go down with an injury and your team does NOT use a timeout then you can't play the rest of that quarter. Will that stop someone from pulling this kind of stunt with say 30 seconds to go? Maybe not. Will it unfairly take someone out of the game who gets the wind knocked out of them and needs the clock stopped but is not seriously hurt? Maybe so but so what? If you are hurt enough to need the refs to stop the clock without a timeout being called, then there has to be some result for that. Most people who go down with an injury are seriously hurt and this won't be a problem at all. They are not coming back all game, let alone that quarter. But if you do go down with a fake/mild/serious injury and the ref is forced to stop the clock, I propose that the player then be prohibited from entering the game again that quarter.



So say we all!

mul21 wrote:

Kenny B. wrote:12-16 x 400's seems quite high what is the purpose right now with vo2max this late in the cycle? Crazy workout!

Not a ton of VO2 benefit, but more to get some pop back in the legs at the end of the cycle. I was really struggling with fast stuff a few weeks ago and now that I've done a few more workouts at faster paces, the legs are coming around and I'm feeling smoother. Plus, it make MP feel not near as tough.

I assume the pace you were running did not get your HR up to Vo2max land? Correct me if I am wrong. I agree with some fast turn over if you were feeling stale. I tend to like GA with strides for that matter or something around 10k pace for mile repeats. Interesting workout seems you did well with it.

Chris M wrote:Allright, here's my random thought of the day and Jim's blog is where this lands...



So I assume most of you have seen the whole nonsense from the Giants game this last weekend where two different players faked injuries and dropped to the ground to stall and delay the other team's hurry up offense. It really is as bad as the worst aspect of international soccer with guys falling to the ground with phantom injuries and then of course popping right back up and being able to play with no problem after that. So what should the NFL do? You can't force teams to take a timeout every time someone gets legitmately hurt. Teams would run out of timeouts. You also can't really judge what injuries are fake/real either out on the field or even afterwards. So here's my invented solution:



If you go down with an injury and your team does NOT use a timeout then you can't play the rest of that quarter. Will that stop someone from pulling this kind of stunt with say 30 seconds to go? Maybe not. Will it unfairly take someone out of the game who gets the wind knocked out of them and needs the clock stopped but is not seriously hurt? Maybe so but so what? If you are hurt enough to need the refs to stop the clock without a timeout being called, then there has to be some result for that. Most people who go down with an injury are seriously hurt and this won't be a problem at all. They are not coming back all game, let alone that quarter. But if you do go down with a fake/mild/serious injury and the ref is forced to stop the clock, I propose that the player then be prohibited from entering the game again that quarter.



So say we all!

Yeah, doesn't get much lamer than that. I like your solution for the short term. I also like the fact that the NFL has made it known that the owners and coaches will be getting called to the principal's office if any more of those shenanigans should occur.

Kenny B. wrote:

I assume the pace you were running did not get your HR up to Vo2max land? Correct me if I am wrong. I agree with some fast turn over if you were feeling stale. I tend to like GA with strides for that matter or something around 10k pace for mile repeats. Interesting workout seems you did well with it.

I was definitely in vo2max territory. 400s just aren't that taxing of a workout because the repeats are so short. You do get vo2max benefit, but running them around 5K pace with 1 minute standing recoveries really isn't all that tough. I'd much rather do that than the 8 x 800 I did last week. For me, the 400s are much more about turnover and getting the legs to have a little pop much moreso than any vo2 benefit.

mul21 wrote:

Kenny B. wrote:

I assume the pace you were running did not get your HR up to Vo2max land? Correct me if I am wrong. I agree with some fast turn over if you were feeling stale. I tend to like GA with strides for that matter or something around 10k pace for mile repeats. Interesting workout seems you did well with it.

I was definitely in vo2max territory. 400s just aren't that taxing of a workout because the repeats are so short. You do get vo2max benefit, but running them around 5K pace with 1 minute standing recoveries really isn't all that tough. I'd much rather do that than the 8 x 800 I did last week. For me, the 400s are much more about turnover and getting the legs to have a little pop much moreso than any vo2 benefit.

Agree 400's are not nearly as taxing as 800's. Nice job.