Saturday, June 15, 2013
Running and Dangers of the Tundra
Weather has been off and on here in Nome for the past three weeks. What that means is there are days where is warm enough to strip down to my running shorts and no shirt, head out on a trail and continue wiping sweat from my eyes. Then there are days like today. Rain coming in sideways, the river water is warmer than the air temp, and...did I mention the rain coming in sideways. Along with this is pea soup fog. Fog so thick that the only shapes you can make out all seem to be outlines of bushes until the bush start moving...and its a musk ox...or a moose...or...a bear. The later encounter has not happened, yet. But today is an another easy run, letting the hamstring heal to completion. I ran six miles on it Thursday and took yesterday off. Hopefully today's run allows for a little more loosening up. More to come....
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Who knew...
I guess like many other blogs, the intent of this one was to keep a log of my running exploits. It has been random and sparsly updated but turns out there are people out there that actually read it. I never feel I write much, let alone anything of significance. I used to take writing classes to make sure that my writing was somewhat entertaining but I found myself exaggerating details to make the story more entertaining. It soon lost much of my interest. So here I am again, after an email from Germany, looking to resurrect this page.
I started up again to keep track of lulls in training. I was, and put emphasis on was and the coming attempt, attempting to make the U.S Mountain Running Team. I came off of a huge winter of nordic skiing and thanks to those around me, came away from this winter with a gigantic cardio base. What did not match was the delusion of grander or perhaps it did match, which is why I find myself sitting on the couch with a hamstring injury dreaming of running ridge lines instead of actually running them. I spent much of the winter plotting lines, taking pictures of mountain tops I wanted to be on top of and feeling the open freedom and wildness that Western Alaska provides.
It all began well, I don't feel as if I started out to ambitious. I have learned from my past and became extremely patient with my training often only running three to five kilometers to allow my muscles and tendons to catch up with my cardio. It began to work. I was feeling strong, doing repeats on Anvil Mountain outside of town. I began feeling stronger and ran with our community running group three times a week on top of my daily runs. I have yet to incorporate any speed, just base building. Then I felt the twinge in the back of my leg. Like so many times before I was able to run it off. But it persisted. So did I. I didn't back down and neither did the pain in my hamstring. I had convinced myself that I would outrun it.
Failure in this was complete when I ran a 4k race. I felt strong and broke into a rhythm that set behind all the competition. Maybe the adrenaline kept me from feeling the pain but about half way through I figured I would push and see where I was at. I pushed the pace, widening the gap between myself and second place. On the turn around I got to see the gap I had created and this only fueled my desire to broadened the gap further. I started to really push, bringing my heart rate well above 180 but still feeling comfortable cruising. My watch was reading 14mph. I haven't calibrated it but I even on downhill runs I hadn't broken 13 yet. I pushed harder, my heart rate moving above 195. I wasn't sure this was physically possible at my age. I began pushing 198 and thats when the knife embedded itself in my hamstring. No one really put a knife in it but at the moment it happend you would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise. I backed down and finished the race cruising in just under 10mph with my heart rate down to 152bpm.
4k in 14:59. I had shut down it down about 1.5k out. I was extremely pleased with the outcome but once the adrenaline subsided the pain came on ful strength as well as the swelling. I have been on the couch for a couple of days now. Waiting it out. Testing the contraction. Icing. Wrapping for compression. More waiting.
I remember this feeling from college. Waiting. Knowing the time I am loosing in training and on competition. Browsing times and results. Digging myself deeper into dispare.
The mental defeat came last night. I was browsing times and came across results from an 8k. NEW COURSE RECORD. My age group. Loosing ground on the competition. Waiting.
For now, I will hope to get back to training. Keep in shape the best I can without running. Waiting to get back on the ridge lines. Waiting.
I started up again to keep track of lulls in training. I was, and put emphasis on was and the coming attempt, attempting to make the U.S Mountain Running Team. I came off of a huge winter of nordic skiing and thanks to those around me, came away from this winter with a gigantic cardio base. What did not match was the delusion of grander or perhaps it did match, which is why I find myself sitting on the couch with a hamstring injury dreaming of running ridge lines instead of actually running them. I spent much of the winter plotting lines, taking pictures of mountain tops I wanted to be on top of and feeling the open freedom and wildness that Western Alaska provides.
It all began well, I don't feel as if I started out to ambitious. I have learned from my past and became extremely patient with my training often only running three to five kilometers to allow my muscles and tendons to catch up with my cardio. It began to work. I was feeling strong, doing repeats on Anvil Mountain outside of town. I began feeling stronger and ran with our community running group three times a week on top of my daily runs. I have yet to incorporate any speed, just base building. Then I felt the twinge in the back of my leg. Like so many times before I was able to run it off. But it persisted. So did I. I didn't back down and neither did the pain in my hamstring. I had convinced myself that I would outrun it.
Failure in this was complete when I ran a 4k race. I felt strong and broke into a rhythm that set behind all the competition. Maybe the adrenaline kept me from feeling the pain but about half way through I figured I would push and see where I was at. I pushed the pace, widening the gap between myself and second place. On the turn around I got to see the gap I had created and this only fueled my desire to broadened the gap further. I started to really push, bringing my heart rate well above 180 but still feeling comfortable cruising. My watch was reading 14mph. I haven't calibrated it but I even on downhill runs I hadn't broken 13 yet. I pushed harder, my heart rate moving above 195. I wasn't sure this was physically possible at my age. I began pushing 198 and thats when the knife embedded itself in my hamstring. No one really put a knife in it but at the moment it happend you would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise. I backed down and finished the race cruising in just under 10mph with my heart rate down to 152bpm.
4k in 14:59. I had shut down it down about 1.5k out. I was extremely pleased with the outcome but once the adrenaline subsided the pain came on ful strength as well as the swelling. I have been on the couch for a couple of days now. Waiting it out. Testing the contraction. Icing. Wrapping for compression. More waiting.
I remember this feeling from college. Waiting. Knowing the time I am loosing in training and on competition. Browsing times and results. Digging myself deeper into dispare.
The mental defeat came last night. I was browsing times and came across results from an 8k. NEW COURSE RECORD. My age group. Loosing ground on the competition. Waiting.
For now, I will hope to get back to training. Keep in shape the best I can without running. Waiting to get back on the ridge lines. Waiting.
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