Wednesday 3 November 2010

TRACK DAY......STICKING TO PLAN A PAYS OFF

   If I'd have had a coach overseeing my session today and he'd asked me how the warm up went and was I feeling up to the session, I would have said that I was feeling quite  weary from 15 miles in the last two days and my left calf felt was sore and likely to hold me back. 
   With 16 x 300 metres on the track scheduled  I think he might well have cut the session down to a half so that he wasn't risking having one injured athlete on his hands.
    But not having a coach  my plan today was to run one , check the time and then use this to determine the target.  I would run as many as I could  at or around that time, hoping the calf would hold out.


 The first was a pedestrian, lacklustre, "down at heel" 76  seconds.   I decided with a push over the last 100 I should be able to manage 75 seconds. 
  I couldn't even manage that on the first 4..........  75.8    76.1     76.0    76.0.  A little progress on the next few  reps .....74.9   74.7   74.4    73.6  73.9 but as the reps continued,  thankfully  and unexpectedly,  I seemed to be gathering  strength .  The stride was lengthening and I was running more on the forefoot.   73.8   72.5  72.3. Better!  
 I was now confident of completing the 16 reps and managed 70.5 and 68.1 for the final 2.  Better still!!

Very pleasing.  Not particularly because of  the times which have been faster overall for 300s  but in the way a session that during the warm up was nearly abandoned,   then  nearly halved,  was eventually completed with acceleration throughout.
  It's said we should listen to our bodies.  Today,   the body was whispering in my ear,  "don't do it"  then
"only do half of it".........but it wasn't shouting  "this is a mistake"!    So I stuck to the plan.
  I never like shortening a planned run or curtailing a planned track session.  It would have been so easy today but it seems to be the case at my time of life that allowing  the body to loosen and become more fluid  can produce dividends.  
  I'm sure all of us,  no matter what age we are,  quite frequently think "I can't be bothered " or
"I've had enough".     But  give in to that thought too often and  bad habits develop leading to a loss of fitness.  
  Glad I  persevered today and felt better for it . Lesson learnt.    I've never been this age before so yes I'm still learning.

1 comment:

  1. Well done on finishing the session - I know what you mean, although I am still a little way behind you in experience (age) as I get older It seems easier to listen to the negative part of your body.

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