I'm still not sleeping all that well, I'm getting 7 hours but it doesn't seem as solid as I used to sleep. I love the extra time in the mornings but I'm worried I'm overreaching a bit and need a break from training. Poor sleep patterns can be a sign of this, or is it just the late and early light keeping me up? I feel ok running for the most part and have been napping for about a half hour when the little one naps but who knows? I may get some sleep supplements today to see if they help out.
I've been tracking my heart rate too in the mornings and at night. I've always had an insanely low HR, a couple weeks ago I tracked it at 34 bpm at 930pm! The odd thing is that it has consistently been lower at night versus in the morning. One would expect the morning to be lowest, but I've been in the 40s to 50s in the morning and always low 40s into the 30s at night. Odd. The bump into the 50s can indicate I need a rest though which hints once again I need a break.
Well with the Wenlock Olympiad Walk coming up if I take time off maybe the week leading up to that would be best. I hate to take a week off but it my be what I need.
My Achilles is doing ok. I think I figured out what it is, some muscle in my calf. When I roll it I can hit one area that hurts like all hell, that must be tugging on my Achilles and causing that bit of pain. So I'm going to work the shit out of it with my roller, rolling pin from the kitchen, and also do some eccentric calf raises. I may invest in The Stick, a sports massage tool that works great for calves too. Hopefully that will all help.
So the Wyre Forest Half Marathon went down yesterday. I have done it three times now and enjoy it. There are a lot of races that weekend so you never know who will show up. The numbers were higher than last year as were the temps!
Two guys from the club I'm in showed up which was fun. I've ran with both of them before and we're all about the same speed so we were hoping to all run together. A couple other fast guys were spotted from other clubs as well. It was hot, in the mid eighties, and despite it being heavily wooded at the start the outer portions of the course are pretty exposed. It's a hilly course with 2 to 3 miles of downhill right off the start which usually means a fast one. I think we averaged about 5 to 520 miles through the beginning. Then the climbing started. There was little if any mud which was a change from the past, we just now had to negotiate hard ruts and bumps that are normally wet and muddy. We all spread out about 5 miles into it. One of the other fast guys took off to the lead and we never saw him. My teammates held onto 2nd and 3rd as I slipped back to fifth. My quads were burning from the downhills and by mile 8 I was hurting. Heat? Overtrained? No speed work? I don't know. I ran 3 or 4 minutes slower than in the past and finished in 5th. We won the team division though which was cool. I was bummed. But, I need to be more concerned with my quads considering what's coming up.
Quads. Looks like I need to focus on down and uphill running. If they are not prepared I will not finish Superior 100. I've been doing 200 body weight squats 5 days a week and I've noticed it helping during my runs, but obviously not enough. So I may add some weight and also start doing single leg squats with the other leg elevated behind. These are supposedly good for the eccentric phase of running; the downhill motion. I also need to do a specific hill training day. The good size hills are about a 4 mile run from the house which is too far to run to, do a hill session, and run home. I just don't have the time which sucks. I could bike there which is an option. Otherwise I may just go to a smaller hill, about a quarter mile away, and run up and down in a loop for a hour and see how that goes and see what kind of vert I can accumulate or see how bad I can make my quads hurt with uphill and downhill speed.
So that's about it for now. Took today off from running and did a bunch of squats and hand stand push ups. The wife is off to London tomorrow so I'll try to get some treadmill time in.
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