Adarq.org

tropical storm isaias is in town, no running today.

not sure why i skipped sunday :-/

UPDATE: rain cleared up around 11 AM so i threw my shoes on and took off before the rain comes back this afternoon.

- run 10.58 km in 51:38
T+DI 141, still extremely humid but temp down 20 degrees F after the heavy rain. consequently, my first sub-50 min 10k since...june? felt so amazing, i actually started laughing to myself at one point. 4:53 average pace and came home under 5:00 so it was pretty well balanced as well.

- stretch

i tried using squats to stimulate myself for jumping but it didn't seem to have an effect and took a lot of time. starting with a few max effort SVJs and then progressively increasing effort on jumps did the trick better than anything. that's for jumps.

for squats i wouldn't even do a walk-out like coolcolj suggested, although it's not a bad idea. i'd just warm up normally until i got close-ish to my goal single, and then do a few progressively heavier singles until i got to the target. so like: bar x 10, 60 x 5, 100 x 3, 120 x 2, 140 x 1, 150 x 1, goal weight: 160 x 1. lots of visualization along the way, while resting, and if it was a true max then i'd hype myself up before the goal weight by slapping my legs and cursing a lot and kind of quietly yelling at myself, if that makes sense.

for sprints, dunno. i was never very good at them.

^^^pretty much that, except i'd also add glute activation (e.g. bridges or SL bridges)

- run 10.0 km in 53:01
T+DI 162. pace average 5:18, which is a bit slow, but it was actually fine/normal until i ran 6:00 for the last km. straight uphill, no shade, struggled. ended up walking the last couple hundred meters home.

- stretch

at the doctor on tuesday i weighed in at 167.5, clothed. was 158 naked just now post-run. my elbow is still fucked but i need to start doing strength work again.

got a physical today for the first time in four years and i feel wiped out. blood drawn, shots given, and for some reason my left hand really hurts. i passed out for like 45 minutes almost as soon as i got home. gonna skip today's run.

kinda weird, don't remember being this tired after a physical before.

this morning woke up wondering whether the achilles discomfort is linked to the knee thing. would make sense.

@adarq, i don't think it's surface- or shoe-dependent. does the same thing on grass, track, or asphalt, and whether i'm wearing running shoes or no shoes. for whatever reason it's tended to bother me less while playing ultimate, even when sprinting flat-out, but it would act up sometimes then, too. it just seems like something is out of alignment, or not activating properly in my hip or something to keep the knee tracking properly when my leg swing gets past a certain amplitude. might be worth taking my spikes to the track just to see, though. hadn't occurred to me before to experiment like that.

the mile-pace intervals were pushing my right knee, which is a little out of sorts today. haven't been able to really sprint for many years now and i guess that's also true for a fast (for me) run. never been able to tell what exactly is wrong. i remember asking for suggestions on lyle mcdonald's mean forum* back in maybe 2014 and his response was, "OP should not sprint." couldn't see a good argument against that, there was no reason i HAD to be sprinting.

the discomfort comes and goes and never bothers me while jogging - it's something to do with the amplitude of the leg swing on sprints, or maybe the amount of knee flexion on the front end (peak knee lift is when it's most noticeable; second-most is peak flexion on the back end). anyway, i'd love to sort that out at some point, it sucks to think i wouldn't be able to test a mile or 800 because my knee wouldn't like it.

*RIP monkey island, i hadn't been on there in years but went to check on it a couple of months ago and it'd disappeared. there were some hilarious people on there.