Thank you for the comments the other day.
First, to let others in on what Chad was talking about with my record keeping.
When I got to college, I started keeping a running journal, by Jerome. I was bummed that I hadn’t kept track of any of my high school running. One day as a means of not studying I found an Excel spreadsheet that was very thorough. I started playing around with that, I added in a sheet for races, and a sheet for my distance around the world. The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,902 miles, I’m at about 18,500. I’ve been filling in at least the mileage per day since Nov of ’97. At some points, I’ve been much better about putting in running course, weather, times, pace, etc. It has been useful, especially when looking back over marathon training.
Second, Bill I agree with you that right now family is the important thing. That has also been the hardest because between work and wanting to succeed in running while I’m still “young” there are only so many hours in the day. Work by far has been the biggest time suck though.
Third, Sasha thank you for the training comments. I’m not planning on going over 70/wk for this training cycle. I also do most of my runs very slow. I’ve been keeping most of them even around 8. Mostly this has to do with the early morning, I’m just not awake yet. In the past I’ve usually done just mileage and slow pace with some fast days. However, I only improve when I’m on the track at least one day a week. Doing the 25x400 with Lion last fall pushed me to new PRs in everything. I’m not sure if you noticed but within the half marathon I more or less broke a lot of my other shorter PRs. In fact the last 5K of that race (down Emigration) was my fasted. In the past for workouts I had usually just down Farleks and longer repeats even up to 3x5K repeats from some advice from a former Hansons runner and an old coach. Also, the speed workouts are my main social output right now so we’ll see. The longer runs I’ve been trying to do on my own so that I can listen to my body for pace. I tend to recover better from doing my track workouts a little too fast than doing my long runs too quickly. I also tend to like them long I actually had 17 planned for today but had to cut it a mile short.
As far as my research goes: I did my thesis on two aspects of cardiac and skeletal muscle fuel utilization. The first part was looking at the molecular mechanism involved in muscle’s decision to burn fat or sugar. The second part was looking at the same mechanism but specifically the role of one protein in muscle glycogen recovery following exhaustive exercise. For my current research I’m looking at the heart to try and understand how sugar delivery affects insulin signaling and metabolic function specifically in relation to exercise, hypertension, and diabetes.
To all three of you. I do like this opportunity to sit down and think about training and “hear” other points of view. I particularly like the discussion about Chad’s recent injury. I’ve had problems with running injuries since college. It doesn’t make sense I wrestled and never had this many injuries. But with the biomechanics of my right leg I’ve always had a problem with issues related to that knee whenever I get in decent competitive shape. I once had a PT tell me with my biomechanics, that I should not run and take up rowing or something else instead. However, like Chad said there is something freeing about running and I only get it when I’m out there, being in a pool, a gym or on a bike just doesn’t do it for me. So no matter how much my body complains I’m sure I’ll continue to fly through the miles and get on the track to feel fast every now and then.
Today’s workout was an early one. I wanted to beat the heat and had to be in lab by 8am. I headed out from home south on the Bonneville Shoreline. It was an out and back. 64’ out and 60’ back. So very relaxed pace. I only saw about 2 other runners but a good 3 dozen cyclists. | 