Weekend racing meltdowns

"Hairless, clawless, and largely weaponless, ancient humans used the unlikely combination of sweatiness and relentlessness to gain the upper hand over their faster, stronger, generally more dangerous animal prey", according to Harvard Anthropology Professor Daniel Lieberman on physorg.com

Maybe I should have been a caveman?

It's crazy that the Chicago marathon was held on such a hot day that there were 10,000 no-shows, another 10,000 dnf's, and 300 runners taken away by ambulance. The Sal's group of five who raced at Steamtown had mixed results on a 70 degree and high humidity day. Pete, the ageless wonder, qualified again for Boston and Andy set a pr and qualified for 2009 (he is already in for 2008). Mike, Mike and Lou finished, but not under the Boston times they desired.

Jan was again the loyal spectator as I crawled through a hot, high dew point xc race at Oatka Park. At three miles I was more than 2 minutes slower than the race 2 weeks ago. I finished the 4.05m course in 30+ minutes, slower than my usual 15k pace and totally wiped out. The course is nice, the Sam Adams beer afterwards was great, but otherwise I didn't have fun. Sunday I ran 11 miles, in much cooler temperatures but still a very high d.p. and lost 5 pounds! My training sessions were going well. Until Oatka I was improving my 5k by 20 or more seconds each time I raced, and now, pflllg.

Jan and Eileen biked 40 miles on Sunday and ran about 10 minutes.

Next up, Hospice 4 miler in Greece on Saturday. The weather looks great, 55 degrees! Maybe I'll actually be able to hold a decent pace?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Motor Imagery

Image
In the book, " The body has a mind of its own " by Blakeslee, the authors state that, "While many types of mental practice are undoubtedly helpful, motor imagery is the only technique that alters your body maps in the same way physical practice does. Visual imagery (as from a spectator's point of view), relaxation, hypnosis, affirmation, prayer...may help you...but will not alter your motor maps." (page 60). Several experiments have been conducted that verify this information. A simple example is that if you imagine moving your little finger for ten minutes a day, after four weeks it will be up to 20% stronger. Motor imagery has been used by pianists, dancers and all types of athletes. It is not something that will help you overnight get better at swimming, running or biking, but over time, just like with physical exercise, it does promote stronger muscle memory and physical attributes.
Read more

Head Over Heels

Probably not the best way to ride a bike, looking at the pavement up close, arms stretched out, seeing the rear tire straight up in the air. Once Jan knew I was only bruised and my bike was okay, she had a nice laugh. Apparently I didn't look too graceful flipping up towards the handle bars, arms and legs spread out. Fortunately I was going very slowly making a turn when I hit a hole off the shoulder of the road. The result was just a leg bruise. Jan ran 11 miles and swam almost 2 miles on Saturday. On Sunday, a beautiful day for bike riding, we rode the 6 villages route . I went 76.5 miles, she completed her scheduled 80 miles by going around our block several times. The route is 66 miles, but we did an extra 10 miles around Churchville. Our overall mph time was pretty good, faster than the cutoff time for Ironman. The roads were in pretty good condition, not too much traffic except for .5 miles on rt. 31, and only a few barking dogs that scared the heck out of us, but didn't ...
Read more

Supportive Husband?

I'm having a difficult time drawing the line between "gentle" encouragement of Jan's Ironman endeavor and being thought of as an overbearing bully where whatever she does in training isn't enough. Yes, she has trained over 8 hours in the past six days. Yes, she will be doing some massive swimming, biking and running this weekend. But I still worry about whether it's enough to make the time limits at the Tupper Lake Tinman in three weeks and Louisville Ironman in twelve. So, I sometimes feel that if I'm not going to push her, who will? Yes, Jan is obviously self-motivated and highly competitive. But even the best athletes usually need an extra push now and then, don't they? I can't imagine being a real coach and a husband or wife of the athlete you are coaching. That seems like an absolute no win situation. Something would have to give in the relationship. It's one thing to coach, push an athlete to do an extra interval or two, have them get ups...
Read more