Another week has gone by and I'm feeling better and better. The cough is about gone. The bicep is still hanging on by a piece of grizzle but that'll get fixed at some point. I'm still waiting for the referral to come in for the ortho surgeon and it looks like I'll get Dr. Cutter.
Best name ever for a surgeon.
I've had this guy work on me before and I like him, because he's a sports medicine specialist and his entire staff is all about rehabbing folks to perform again. In fact he's the surgeon who worked on Mary Lou Retton's knee just a couple of weeks before she won gold in the Olympics. No slouch there.
I first met him because I had dislocated my shoulder in a softball game. I got it back in okay that night so it was a couple of days later that I finally decided to go see him. He did all the xray stuff and examined me pretty good then said, "okay...."
I thought, "here it comes. He's going to tell me to quit playing competitive softball." But instead...
"Can you bat left handed?"
"As a matter of fact I can."
"Okay, good. Do that for the next couple of weeks. What position do you play?"
"I pitch and I play outfield mainly, sometimes 2nd base."
"Okay, don't reach for any line drives straight over your head. To either side fine, but not over your head and don't layout for a ball for the next two weeks."
He instructed me on using ice and ibuprofen and some PT stuff to strengthen the shoulder and that was that! I was pumped.
So I'm looking forward to him stretching that muscle back up to my shoulder and sewing it up right.
Meanwhile, I'm still running according to schedule and feeling stronger. Except in my first Short Hill workout since July. My times sucked and I was gassed after just four reps. But it was the first shot at it. The first attempt at a workout is always hard. I've got 400's coming up on Thursday and that follows up a couple of good distance runs and a good 6 x 800 workout. This past Saturday my easy 10 mile run felt very easy and it was more than ten seconds per mile faster than just the week before and that run felt hard.
My Tempo Run this morning was too easy. But that's because I thought I knew what my pace should be and it turned out to be too slow.
I used the treadmill at the gym because it was a really lovely freezing rain this morning and everything was covered in ice. ...and I'm a wuss when it comes to "cold and wet."
The plan was to run five miles. One mile warm up, a Tempo 5K, then another mile to cool down. I had decided to do the Tempo at 7:30 pace because that would be about the pace for my last 5K race. And I was a little scared. I thought running a mile and then trying to do a quick 5K followed by another mile was just going to be really hard. I should have looked at my McMillan Running Calculator pace sheet for workouts.
I did the warmup mile in about 8:40 pace then dropped into 7:30. My mouth got really dry because I was indoors and my salivary glands still don't quite do all they used to, but I knew I was gliding along. The second mile came and I figured if I still felt good after that one I'd speed it up. 1.95 showed up and I wasn't even panting. I punched up the treadmill so I was at 7:13 pace. It felt fast so I held there, but after a bit I knew I could do more and decided to speed up again with the last half and the tenth left to go.
2.5 came up and I hit the buttons again and dropped the pace to 6:58. I was cruising and feeling really strong. When I got to the end of the 5K I slowed up to 8:40 pace again and strided along through the last mile.
When I got to five miles and stepped off the treadmill I knew right away that I should've been a lot faster to get a good workout.
Oh well.
When I came home I looked at the sheet I printed off of the McMillan web page and sure enough it said I should have been somewhere between 6:57 to 7:14 pace. I averaged 7:21. 7:10 would've been a beast of a run, and I think I could have pulled it off. It would've been hard and I would've been making gross noises and whimpering as I got to the end of the 5K but I could've done it.
Oh well.
So tomorrow I've got an Easy Run of 7 miles to get in and then a rest day before my 400's on Thursday. And my target pace is 8:30. I've GOT to do the right pace so I get the benefits of endurance without really stressing my legs and joints too much. That way I'll be ready to do the full workout of 10 400's at 1:25 pace on Thursday. That's at the low end of the McMillan range of 1:23 - 1:29 so if I need to I can slow that down if I need to in order to get all ten reps in.
Last year I saw some great gains following the training strategies of David Holt combined with some of the workouts and all of the paces from Greg McMillan. In fact, if I get my 1500 time down below 5 minutes as planned I am probably going to pay for a training plan and coach for the next year to see if I can really go sub-5 for the mile! I may even go out to one of his camps in Arizona this fall.
We'll see. It's just time and money right?
I'm looking forward to each week, increasing the intensity of the workouts and getting faster and faster. I love running. : D
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