A.M. 20 mile run. Did a good part of it with Chad. We did a 4+ mile warmup, then I ran a 6 mile tempo - 2 down, 2 up, 2 back down. The splits were 5:27, 5:22, 6:06, 6:11, 5:29, and 5:17 with the total time of 33:52. The wind was quite significant, but not as bad as last week. However it was bad enough that my splits in the 3rd mile were 94, 86, 91, 95. On 94 I was running by myself, on 86 Chad blocked the wind for me, on 91 he was still blocking it but was getting tired, on 95 I was by myself again. I felt very strong in the last two miles. Was able to shift gears quickly after the turnaround with a quarter in 86, and after that the remaining 1.75 were at 5:20 average slipping off the 5:20 pace by 4 seconds up to the last quarter, but then making it up with a kick in 76. Overall the improvement from the best time for this 6 mile course was 34 seconds. Some of it came from wearing shorts, but I think some from the PT session the day before. I am estimating about 3 seconds per mile from the PT session, although it is difficult to say exactly. I have 5 more sessions scheduled and will be doing tempo runs the day after, so this will allow me to document the results with more reliability. Also, if the treatment is effective I am anticipating the results to continue improving of over the course of several months. Some things produce immediate improvement, such as better balance, less waste in movement, and immediate muscular activation, but other things take time - strengthening the muscles that were less developed due to deactivation, improvement in muscle coordination, and the improvements in recruitment that require practice. Then we went home and got the kids. Benjamin did 6, Jacob 1, Joseph 1, Jenny and Julia did 2 on their own. Tobler family joined us. When I was done with everybody I added a quick 1.5 tempo on the hills. The wind was blowing and blew me away - I ended up with 9:11. But there is something about this course that makes it hard - even without the wind 6:00 average on it feel so much harder than it should. |