Weekend roundup

Completed my longest run in about 6 months on Saturday. A full 9.4 miles. No residual IT pain. No glute pain. No hip flexor pain. All good things. Running should be automatic. Plug in and go. Now I have a litany of to dos rolling around in my noodle. Every stride is scrutinized and measured. Its not driving me insane quite yet. But I can't wait to get back to the neurotic joys of day dreaming the miles away.

So for now - every run - here are Schmitty's keys to recovery checklist:
  • Dynamic warm up  - all kinds of crazy leg stretching, hip opening weirdness while the dog looks at me in bewilderment
  • Pawing at the ground - to get me out over my foot strike so I am more mid foot than heel
  • Shortening my stride
  • Stride rate of 180 steps/minute - being a drummer helps...who needs the stride rate app when you have a metronome in your head
  • Keeping a 8 minutes/mile pace - I've been told I run my long runs too fast. So I've been working on slowing myself down.
Oh and I switched to running on the side walk. Read something about always running on a slant (the crown in the road) and it seems to make sense. Just being uber sensitive to everything right now. Heck, I would wear my underwear on the outside of my pants if I thought it would help. To be honest though, based on my recent run ins with dogs and their owners and kids and their kid things, if it weren't for my "put an end to IT pain" campaign I would much prefer take my chances in the road with automobile traffic.

Sunday's ride was a bit of all right (yay, outdoors!) and a bit of crap (boo, the wind!). Turns out Tuesdays TT test and Wednesday's lifting hadn't quite flushed out of my quads. I was in a "spot of botha" from wheels down. The headwind all the way home didn't help matters. Still got a 50 mile ride in outdoors so I'll bank it and move on.

This week is off to a less than stellar start having slept through this morning's swim. But in better news, I am going to meet Jen after work today at Mox Multisport to pick up her new QR. Freakin sweet!

- him


Comments

nicole said…
Jonathan! You will be ITB pain-free, I know you can do it. Mine is pretty good these days. It will get better.

Remember when Trish Taylor had ITB issues and the running clinic told her to try Chi running? I tried it too... and turns out your "keys to running" are basically Danny Dyers' technique. It's very annoying to keep track of all those things and sometimes it feels like it would be easier to JUST FREAKING RUN but I promise you all those little tweaks help.
J2 said…
Thanks for the running support Nicole. Its getting there...one step at a time:)

- Him