Running Redemption

Saturday A.M Parkrun 5km 22:07

(full report to come later)

Lead Legs and Pseudo Hangovers

Friday A.M. Speed session 15km total)

Some runs are just crap. I don’t normally do speed work after 2 rest days, and now I know why! Right from the start my legs were like lead.

The session was 2km reps, and my first one was on pace but it all went downhill from there! My times were so slow they’re not worth recording.

The other thing out of the ordinary yesterday was I had a few beers over lunch (probably 5 standard drinks over about 4 hours), and while I didn’t feel hungover it may have contributed to the ick feeling.

Tomorrow morning is Parkrun, so hopefully I can redeem myself!

Mid-week Coast Break

Wednesday and Thursday rest days

J and I both managed to have Wednesday and Thursday off this week. The weather has been terrible here recently, but we decided to ignore that and still go on a coast trip!

It was a short trip – just 2 nights, and we drove up on Tuesday after work.

The rain was fairly constant while we were up there, and the low that was causing the rain also made the surf really terrible!

We managed to go for a 90 minute walk in the morning – what started as a light drizzle turned into a huge downpour by the end!

I also discovered that my lunar sandals (with a leather footbed) bleed their color when they’re wet:

Very attractive feet!

The afternoon was spent at the movies (we saw The Descendents) – it was a good movie, very intense. It also made me want to go back to Hawaii!

Midweek holidays always make working days so much harder…

Happy Australia Day!

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Playing with Running Form

I know there are a lot of variables with running form, but I’ve only just figured out what I may need to fix myself. It’s something that’s very difficult to self analyse!

I’ve been talking to some different people recently about what their limiting factor is when running. I find that in my case my quads start burning well before my lungs are telling me to stop, but for a lot of people their lungs seem to be more of a limit.

One of my coaches (my Friday morning coach) said to me to try and run a bit taller to try and spread the workload to other muscles.

Another girl in the squad said the same thing, but she also mentioned about my pelvis positioning. I know that when I’m tired I start to hunch over, but she made me realize that I also tilt my pelvis forward!

If you look at the waistband of my pants you can see that in the left photo it is flat, whereas in the second photo it looks higher in the front. I think that’s what’s happening when I run.

I don’t over stride, but I think I push my legs too far ahead of me when I run, which puts more strain on my quads. I also probably sink down in my hips when I’m tired. My foot strike is fine (I land mid-foot) and I don’t have any current injuries, but my ITB can get sore at times.

How do I fix my form?

There are a couple things that I think may help:

• More awareness of my spine positioning and pelvic rotation when running
• A stronger core, and stronger glutes
• Focus on lifting my legs up more at the back
• More plyometrics to encourage good form and increase leg power

The core work fits in with my extremely vain goal of wanting a six-pack! Even if my form doesn’t change dramatically I think that taking those steps will hopefully make me a stronger runner.

Rainy Tuesday Speed Session Loops

Tuesday A.M. Speed session, 18km total

We’ve got some miserable weather going on in Brisbane at the moment. When I was growing up, summer meant really muggy days with an afternoon storm at about 3pm (right when school finished), that would last for half an hour and then clear up.

The last 2 summers we’ve been experiencing days with constant rain, which led to last summer’s floods.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s not been as bad this year, and floods like last year only occur once every 40 years so hopefully we’ll be safe for a while!

The rain during the night was so heavy at time that our gutters were overflowing, which didn’t allow for a great night’s sleep.

My phone went off at 4am, and I expected the message to say that running was cancelled. No such luck – it was just the coach letting us know it’s still on! I then got a message 15 minutes later saying to meet in a different spot, because the dirt path by the river would be too muddy. My alarm went off 30 minutes later and I was ready to go (much to J’s disgust – according to him early rainy mornings are for spooning, not for running!)

The session involved 2 short loops with a jog recovery between them. The first loop is about 460m, the second loop is 300m and the recovery is 140m. The catch is that both loops involve slight slopes – not enough to really slow our times down, but enough to make it hurt very quickly! I need to work on my strength as well as my speed, so it was the perfect session.

My times for the longer loop were between 1:47 (rep number 2) and 2:02 (rep number 5) and 1:13 (rep number 1) and 1:18 (rep 4) for the shorter loop. I managed to keep my recoveries constant at around 50 seconds.

I went out too hard (I was running with Sarah, who’s slightly faster than me) but I’m happy with my consistency.

We finished the session off with 10 hill sprints. The hill is about 150m long and the gradient is probable only 5% – again it was just enough to make us hurt! It was the perfect opportunity to work on form, which has resulted in sore glutes (which normally doesn’t happen).

A couple of us went for a slightly longer cool-down, and then we got lost so it turned into a looooong cool-down. Including my run to and from the session I ran 18km all up – a great start to a tuesday!

J and I are going away for a spontaneous coast trip tonight. We’re just going for 2 nights, and the weather is going to be terrible but it’ll be really nice to spend some time away together! I’ve even promised him that I’m not taking any running clothes – this week I’m trialling a less (days) is more approach, and making each session really worthwhile.