Jumper 2 point 0's posterous

04 · 30

Core and Functional Training

I am commited to the Core!

A new mantra for me. I remember my "fresh" days on Facebook in which I would pretty much talk about how far or fast (well, that's subjective isn't it?) I ran. I am sure that I'll still comment about some key runs and certainly races, but over the rest of 2012 I'm going to comment a lot more on my core exercises.

It is my core and imbalances that has plagued me with injury this past year and it is the dramatic increase in core exercises that are finally allowing me to actually not feel any discomfort at times.

Amazing huh! ;-)

Hopefully I can report very little of no pain sometime this season! We shall see.

But while I'm talking about core, I wonder how much others do core exercises? And I'm not just talking abs. Working on core and/or strength seems to be a rather discrete amongst my fellow athletes that I know or follow. Just take a look at your favorite blogs or professional athletes on fb. How many of them talk about the strength or core work that they do?

I think that for many of us (not necessarily all), this fact needs to change.

I'll talk more about this soon but for now, I just want to say that stretching is NOT enough. Stretches are in of itself worthless, I'll even deem to say! Why? Because I muscle doesn't learn by being stretched, it learns by doing. The muscle has to be actively stretched.

I am doing a lot less running right now. That will increase but I'm ok with it for the moment. Yesterday I did an hour of training though. These included planks, deadbugs, romanian dead lifts (body weight only), mini band squats, 90/90 stretches and much more.

Much of these I have learned from coreperformance.com and gojessi.com

In addition, I like to do some real posterior chain focused exercises too. Today I did 50 minutes of stuff like this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOTvaRaDjI

I found it to be rather difficult the first few times. Give it a try. If you find it easy, well then you understand why I have to focus on it, rather than miles. If you find it difficult, maybe you should do it as well?

Thank you,

Jumper

02 · 05

Natatorium, U of M

02 · 04

Frozen Fog

01 · 18

Ironman

Last Saturday, I met with a few friends at a bar to watch some football and crashed ice.

Have you ever met people that you consider friends, but never get to spend much time with them? To add to that, it doesn't bother you much that you don't get to spend that time? I don't mean because it then would be too much time, like differences showing up and breaking the peace or fun. (because there are differences in opinon for sure, but a lot more similarities). I just mean that you accept the fact that this is the way it is. The amazing part is that when you do get to spend that time, you're just simply in a place that feels right. It's simply enjoyable, comfortable and you just feel content.

Anyways, 2 of the friends that were there fit into that description for me. If I get to see them a dozen time in 2012, awesome. If not, then that is just the way it is.

Btw, I adore the other two that were there too, just not as close to them.

Anyways, that was all off subject! Amongst the talk about iphones, college, business, a touch of biblical philosophy perhaps, Brians asks, "so when are you doing an Ironman"

And it's haunted me ever since.

I have been satisfied just knowing that one is somewhere in my future.

I've been content to wait.

And I still am!

But whether it's next year or in 3 years,

I think it's time to have a plan!

12 · 12

11 ways to cheat a marathon

11 ways to cheat on your marathon.

12 · 11

The Christmas Train

When the kids were young, we would visit the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train with Grandma and Grandpa Borrell! I honestly forgot about it until Karol brought it up the other day. So we went to Central Avenue, brought a couple cans of food for the food shelf and visited this year. Good times!

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12 · 10

Ten!

For some reason, and I have no idea why, I've been thinking about how many marathons I'm going to run! I've run 4 so far. Basically, I've decided to focus on shorter distances but I do also want to run some marathons. I'm planning on Detroit for 2012, with some extended family from the Windsor, Ontario area. I also have New York City and Chicago on my list. That leaves 3. Is it possible that one of them can be Boston?????

09 · 03

Hannah now has glasses

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08 · 28

To Marathon or not to Marathon?

I'm not going to follow that title with the typical Shakespearean response.

But it is an important question.

But why am I asking it?

I'm not sure at this point about expectations. I know that I can run a marathon without even being close to my pre-training goals. I know I can do a marathon more for the enjoyment of the accomplishment rather than doing a personal best. But I'm not sure that this is what is best. And frankly, I should be doing a personal best!

I became injured this past May/June that took a long time to recover. It was some form of radiculopathy! I did not go see a specialist and there are many reasons for that.

I have had this pain before, in fact, I get it a couple times of year. The fact is that it's actually been better since I started running.
Every time I have had it, I intuitively knew the reason. They usually involved me stopping my stretching, yoga dvd, pre run exercises. You know, kind of how some people stop taking their anitbiotics or bp medication when they feel better. That's what I did, I was feeling good, my running was going great and I just stopped doing what got me there. Not conciously of course, but it happened.
This time was a little different. I was on call in May and wasn't being called in. Because of that, I managed some incredible hard short and long intervals and a tempo run on the treadmill over that weekend. Too much. I was injured.
Denial that it was worse. I thought that it would just be better one day when I woke up. That's what always happened before.

Either way, I have been able to run all of July and August now. But I have largely too chicken to do any kind of speedwork. Increasing my miles has gone pretty well though!

Today, I had the run legs of the Minneapolis Du. My son did the bike ride! We decided this because we wanted to race together and he is in Cross Country. Doesn't need any hard running with all the running he has already. I was only able to manage a 7:56 minuret/mile pace for the first 5k and an 8:00 pace for the second. My breathing was only moderately heavy and my legs seemed to want to go but I simply couldn't push it any faster. I should be running 7:00 minute/miles for a 5k, if not a few seconds faster. My legs are trash! Now, I did run the Ragnar Relay just this past weekend, but I'm not confident that this is the problem. I took it fairly easy this past week only running 20 miles.

What did happen is that I ran a speed workout. An easy one that is called 60/60's! 60 seconds at a 6 minute pace with a 60 second recovery (2 miles warm and cool down). The next day I did some planks and other stregthening. The following day, radiculopathy!

The good news is that I was able to minimize it. It seems to be worse when my hamstrings tighten! Or does my hamstrings tighten because of the radiculopathy? Either way, I have to do my Yoga DVD at least twice a week, if not more to keep them loose. I think that I have other important stretches as well, but the hamstrings seem to be the main culprit and what had I NOT done since before Ragnar? That's right, the Yoga DVD. For the record, I will never, ever do yoga in front of other people. Just sayin!

The bad news, is that I have minimized the pain, but I have not minimized the weakness as a result of that. Anytime I have this issue, it takes time for my legs to gain it's strength. It's like my nerves are slightly "turned off", the spigot isn't fully open and I don't have all the power available. Hence, only an 8 minute mile per mile at the two 5k's I ran today.

So, what do I do?

Here's my plan for this week.

Regular run on Monday, Minnesota State Fair after work.
On call Tuesday ! If I can, I will do strength exercises. Will definitely do yoga DVD
60-60's followed by yoga DVD, and other stretches.
Regular/recovery run on Thursday
Long Run on Friday or Saturday. Whichever day I don't run the long run will have short tempo.

And then review how I feel! Any radiculopathy? Do I feel strong? Are my legs handling the speed work and the long run?

If yes, I continue training for marathon week by week. Increase speed work

If no, heal, keep longer runs and non speed work going as much as possible and then strongly consider not running the Twin Cities Marathon. And then also see a specialist.

I hope the answers to the questions are yes. I'm going to do my best to see that it is.