Thursday, June 28

Are we just getting older?

After returning to the video store with previous night’s rental in hand (I’d mistakenly taken the wrong season), and exchanging it for one I hadn’t seen, I looped through Fairfield on my way to the shop. The clinic was a slight variation of last week, 15’ wup/wdn with a 10’ tempo but this time with 8x hills (not 6). And so, after brief instructions and separating the horde in two, I headed out with one mass, up Rockland (a few fleet footed souls taking a longer route) and down Gonzales to where we were starting the tempo. I was thoroughly impressed to see almost all the runners having learnt from last week’s session and rather then race, decide to pace themselves accordingly. After a brief respite, I had them running up Gonzales, alternating between a) the full hill at. 60”, and b) turning off a side road partway up, approx. 45” and then finding their race stride with the remaining 15”. The night was underscored when a young member had the mettle to remind me of my speech on the fist night, “if you ever see me not yell walker up, point it out and I’ll do push-ups”, I’ll have to pay closer attention next time around (and remember to do the push-ups).

Unfortunately, as a result of running 6 of the hills at a up-tempo clip, my nemesis returned later that evening… and I returned to the floor so that I could resume my stretching routine last exercised at least a month earlier. Do we ever learn, or, rather then getting wiser with experience are we just get older?

Apparently, one clinic member was getting wiser as rather then aggravate an already irritated calf, he returned after the warm-up, I guess there is hope for all of us.

Tonight, a friend and I went in search of summer. Sadly, after tracing Fernwood to the Cedar Hill Golf Course, ducking down a few ivy lined lanes and returning via the Goose, we arrived empty handed and with said friend having reacquainted himself with a sore hamstring. Bugger it all. Given that summer has officially started, at what point can we begin to gripe about the lack of warm weather, or, alternatively should I be content with the fact that as we finished our run it was 16C and raining rather then a frigid 6C?

Training:
Wednesday: 1:11:50 with 6x hills (steady)
Thursday: easy 1:14:59

3 comments:

Mike said...

It's actually refreshing to hear someone gripe about the lack of warm weather rather than the opposite, which seems to be the general trend.

Sorry to hear the achilles is bugging you again.

Anonymous said...

Summer will only start here in Victoria when my foot is fully healed and I am out running again...I have connections!

Michael said...

Mike – refreshing to hear someone gripe about a lack of warm weather? And I’ve been sitting here, having never been to Arizona but dreaming of some of the dry desert heat that you occasionally speak of. I suppose I should count my blessing as I don’t know how you manage to run in that heat, it’d do me in.

The achilles was acting up as a result of the hills, but after some proper and prolonged stretching of my hamstrings it appears to have gone away. I’m definitely going to have to reintroduce some stretching into the weekly routine.

Diva – hurry up and start running!