In it for the long run

July 6 Interval Workout

A mercifully less-heated-up-than-usual day, yet a day of feeling restless and vaguely uneasy, distracted, as if behind the curve. Walking down the hill from the bus stop behind the Art Museum, I thought about my mom and remembered that I'd often call her during that walk, tell her what I saw, tell her about the sun setting over the river, about the way it turned the river to gold. That last Tuesday, I told her that sometime we should all come there for a picnic, and she agreed. Two days later, I lost her, but I think that one day we will have that picnic, and in spirit, she will be there.

Oddly, although I knew that this was the 6th of the month, I was not drawing the connection between the date and the fact that it was the two-month mark until I was enroute home from the workout. I was simply feeling restless and uneasy and missing her.

Workouts on such days always bring me to a kind of center, a peace with myself, with my body. Our workout for this date was a "pyramid," consisting of a 200, 400, 600, and back down the "scale" on the other side--400, 200. This went pretty well, except that on the first, the right quad tightened up a lot. I dialed back the effort a little and concentrated on knee lift, which seemed to help. During the second 200, it was again irritated, but not as much as during the first. My times:

200 (1) 53, 400 (1) no time recorded, 600 3:03, 400 (2) 1:59, 200 (2) 56.

Wanted to do another quarter, but Mike nixed that. Then I said to myself, "what were you thinking! Your quad isn't ready for another quarter!" Trotted back on my cooldown run, but the workout was not over. The marathon group, along with Mansoor and John from the Peak Performance group, gathered at the lawn behind the Art Museum where we did skip bounds. Those are FUN! They consist of an exaggerated skipping motion that reminded me of a speeded up version of the "golden pheasant stands on one leg" t'ai chi exercise. I was worried a little that the quad would bother me, but thought if it did, I'd back off. However, the movement actually seemed to help loosen it up--making me think maybe it would be good to do these before the workout.

Mike told Nick and me that our coed masters' team had won an award in Broad Street. So in spite of my slow race, I now have a lovely silver plate for the effort! It's interesting that my slowest two Broad Street Runs are the ones for which I have awards. But perhaps there's a kind of rightness about that. The slowest races were also the most difficult to run. Four years ago, it was 90ish degrees and I had one of those crash-burn overheated races. This year, I'd just recovered from a pretty bad cold, and there just wasn't any "gas in the tank." Felt I was giving it my best effort and barely keeping the pace under 11 mins. a mile. Seeing the way things were going, I had to accept that simply finishing the race would be my day's achievement. In spite of having just recovered from a cold, in spite of having just lost my job, I wasn't drawing the connection between that and the slowed down race.

Interesting about Broad Street this year: another instance in which I had just gone through a lot of stress and yet wasn't connecting that to my performance in the race--until afterward.

All of which suggests that when I'm experiencing a fall-off in performance either physically or mentally, it's time to look (without making excuses, just with understanding) beyond the obvious causes, ask myself what is different, what's the undercurrent. A quad that tightens up is at least something definable as a cause for slowing down. A "mind cramp" doesn't yield explanations so easily, but dialing back is as important. In this case, recognizing what hurts and why isn't just about improving performance. It's about surviving. And it's as important to reward the effort when it seems too little, yet is all I can do on a particular day. It's a way of moving forward.

posted by DPMcManus @ 2:50 AM