AM: (8.5 miles, 1:15:34). Felt better today than I have in a while ... there are a few things going on. First, I had an Egoscue appointment yesterday ... Egoscue is basically a technique that incorporates Pilates, yoga and stretching exercises to increase your alignment (particularly with respect to hips, shoulders and spine). The thought is (my naive interpretation of it anyway) is that this alignment increases biomechanical efficiency. For runners, this biomechnical efficiency helps increase speed and reduce overuse injuries. Basically, I believe that rather than trying to force a particular efficient stride, you need to ensure your body is in proper alignment and then the most efficient stride for you will come naturally. I don't know if this is exactly the way things work, but I do believe that many times when start to have "aches and pains" it is remedied by changing some of these exercises. Right now I go once a month and they give me a new set of exercises to do -- and then in between visits I can email them if things are "working" and they will give me some alternate ones to try. It adds about 30-40mins on to my workout every day -- but I think it helps. The second thing is that I am just not recoverying very well between runs right now (which is a problem since I am not actually training very hard yet!). So, I have started taking an amino acid supplement to see if that helps any. Trial and error ... so far it may be in my head but I think it may be helping. From the looks of it, Greg has me alternating my "long run days" between shorter but more intense runs and increased distance (next week I will be running 18 miles) -- as we progress through cycles it will morph more and more into both higher mileage and some higher intensity.
PM:(4.5 miles in my favorite park).
Off to work! Happy weekend bloggers! | 