finished up second in heptath!
considering all things… the heat (90+), my ankle, my awful performances… I was happy enough. During the 800 my entire body revolted and said STOP and I ran 10 seconds slower than my PR, but it really brought it home to me that my body needs a break or a change and after four years I need to have an actual off-season. I have slowly been feeling my body come off its peak for the past couple weeks and now I am just worn out.
Still, a school record and 2nd at state on a bad day isn’t bad.
I might still go to new england’s to hurdle, and if I run slow, thats ok… I would rest easier knowing that I took it as far as I could and that I took every chance I had to run my sub-15.
Now summer has really started because I have officially GRADUATED, so after saturday I think I am saying no thanks to nationals and I will jump in the pool and get off my ankle. I don’t think it’s getting worse day by day, but it’s certainly not getting any better, and it hurts all the time now. It is worst going up stairs or when my foot is flexed- WORST when I have that ankle back to stretch my calf, that kind of bending.
almost forgot yesterday one of my biggest breakdown signs… while I was warming up for the 800, I went deaf in one ear. I posted about this a long time ago, it’s this weird thing that happens when I haven’t eaten enough or my body is really stressed and I am still trying to work it… I couldn’t eat anything right before the race, and obviously it did not go well.
The happy news is that my shins have pretty much stopped bothering me lately, and the ankle is not bad today. I think I will make it through new england’s before I call it an end.
congrats on the hept! Take it easy at least for a few days. Multi’s really mess you up especially if you aren’t healthy going into them in the first place!
Before I went to practice today I realized that I left my spikes at the heptathlon because I was rushing my ass off to get to my graduation. So I was flipping out and really irritated when I came in, but I did my warmup with very little ankle pain. My said that we would test my hurdle splits and if they were fast I could go to new england’s, and if they were slow I couldn’t go.
So… did 1x1, 2x2, 2x3 at pretty normal speeds.
Then we put out 5 hurdles to do a test 55m to see if I still had the same speed from indoor. I ran 8.56 jogging through the line, then 5 minutes later I ran 8.35.
I was PSYCHED because my PR is 8.36- (granted this is a conversion from my 60m hurdle time of 9.26 at nationals, so my 55m PR otherwise is 8.61) so even though it was hand-timed it was still FAST for the tail-end of a tough season. In practice and in old spikes, no less!
I think the beach helped my ankle, no joke. The water was FRIGID, the sand made me use more range of motion than normal walking, plus walking in water was less weight on it. I did almost no walking on solid groud yesterday.
Obviously, I am going to new england’s this saturday.
Got new spikes, which are AWESOME.
Came in today and warmed up easy and did short hurdle mobility.
Then:
-2x1 hurdle
-2x held starts out of blocks to hit angles
-3x3 hurdles: my coach figured somehow earlier in the season that if I could hit 5.0 for the third hurdle touchdown I would be on pace for a 15.0. I ran 4.93 and 5.03, then he told me to imagine that if I ran 4.90 or better that would mean placing tommorow. So I went 4.83
I’m not really sure what to expect tommorow- during indoor I was 5th at New England’s on a BAD race, and this season I am seeded 14th going into it tommorow. (I don’t think my seed in indoor was very high, but it was better than 14th.) For some reason 100h has always been tougher for me to have success in. Having said that, there are no semis tommorow- 8 fastest by time from the trial to the final which kind of sucks, but I plan on racing to get into that 8.
And now my ultimate question… I have felt better the past two days than I have for the past 3 weeks. WHY?
-my muscles don’t feel sore or tired- they feel springy like they would in early comp phase
-my ankle still hurts, but it has been MUCH better for the past couple days
-my hurdles feel quicker and cleaner and faster than they have for practically this whole season
The only thing that doesn’t feel drastically better is my starts, but they are acceptable as they are for now. WHY? All I did was go to the beach! Maybe it is all in my head, I have been pretty happy with the end of school and whatnot. I’m surprised that I bounced back so well from the heptath, which I hobbled through and was miserable.
I guess we’ll see how tommorow goes- I’m hoping the times will reflect the good vibes, it would be depressing to feel so great and then go and run slow anyways. My seed time suckssss, I need to pull off 15 flat at least! I think my college coach is coming to watch again, worse luck :rolleyes:
I just had a one of a kind experience, it makes for a very good story…
At the last minute this morning, it was decided that I should drive myself to new england’s, about an hour away from where I live. I have taken much longer trips than that, so I thought it was no big deal. BUT OF COURSE, I made a really stupid mistake and took an exit that I shouldn’t have taken and gotten MAJORLY detoured and lost and I had to back-track all over the freakin state. Amazingly enough after flipping out and driving way too fast and practically crying, I got onto the right road and got myself to the meet. What should have been a one hour drive turned into 2.5 hours of stress!
My coach thought my race would go off at 12- I got there at 12:20 but thought I might as well check. So I parked illegally, jumped out of the car and ran over to the start where they were setting blocks for the LAST heat of girls hurdle trials, and there were only 7 girls in the heat… So after thinking about it for about .2 seconds I jumped the fence, ran up to the official (who i knew, thank god) and said “sir… I need to run in that lane.” And of course he looked at me weird, like what the hell are you doing, but he let me take the lane. So I pretty much threw on my uniform and spikes, set my blocks, stretched my lead leg hamstring, and raced about 10 seconds later. No warmup, no stretching, no drills… I just WENT.
All that adrenaline pumping and sitting in the car for so long had me shaking in the block, but I raced pretty clean and it felt quick. Of course with all the circumstances it was only 15.7 which put me 10th- 2 places out of the final. It was frustrating because my muscles felt really good and my practice splits have been fast, so if I could have warmed up I probably would have had a better shot at the final… or if they had semis like any normal meet I would have made that but it was as it was. I’m glad I had the guts to get into that heat- it would have killed me to go through all that and not get to race, even if the race was a little slow.
My body feels so good besides the ankle (still hurts slightly but feels better than it has in a while) I almost wonder if I should have gone ahead and gone to nationals. I am probably doing the smart thing by not going, but today was just such a strange way to end the season!
was really busy all morning, seems like it will be an off day.
I am sort of at a loss on what to do now- I have always done some kind of training in the summer but in the past it has been tainted by doing a lot of milegae in an effort to lose weight even though I don’t really need to. I have always lifted as well, but I have never followed a GPP plan, which I want to do. Before I can do that, my coach (HS) wants me to de-train for a couple weeks and have some time to just play (as in swim or bike or something like that) and he thinks I can wait to get back on a program until as late as the second week of july.
I would have to agree with your coach on that one. It sounds like you could use some time to recover, but you shouldnt just stop training altogether. Your coach sounds like a good one and I’d follow his recommendations about de-training and then taking some time off. This would allow you to be fully recovered to start up once again to prepare for next season. But hey, thats just me.
It is torturing me a little bit that I decided not to go to nationals, but I agree, it is probably for the best.
Today was my attempt at de-training:
-full warmup
-hurdle mobility over 10 hurdles instead of 5
-10 min. tempo run: 30s on, 30s off (on grass)
-4x40 (grass) quick but relaxed
-really complete stretching
I was going to do more than 10 min. but my ankle was a little bit achy in the first few minutes and I got tired quicker than I expected. I will ice the ankle a bit later and maybe do some resistance band stuff for both ankles/shins.
The one thing I am unsure of is what I should do for lifting right now. I don’t know exactly what de-training lifts should be, since I haven’t lifted much in the past couple weeks. My coach recommended taking some time to do something besides running until july-ish, but I don’t know if that means I should take a break from lifting as well. I will do core stuff, but as for the rest… it is a moot point until I renew my gym membership anyway I guess.
I was actually very proud today, I went out and did a circuit which is not something I would have had the patience (or intelligence) to do a year or two ago.
-2 min jog
-1 min on (pushups/plank/abs/jumps etc), 1 min jog for 6 sets
-2 min rest
-another set of 6
-2 min jog
-looong, slow, thorough stretch including some yoga stuff
I know that only 2 cycles of this is not too much, but a couple of the exercises made me pretty tired since we did not work much core during the season. Adding in the time for stretching it took me about 45 minutes, so I thought that was pretty good. I felt that I could have done another set, but I figured if I push it too much then I won’t be motivated or want to go out and do it again.
I’m starting to miss lifting, I need to renew my gym membership. Otherwise, the pool behind my house just opened for the summer… swimming on a regular basis would be something pretty new for me, but perhaps worth a shot, especially to get off my ankle.
I got SO hungry after my workout I was like… stuffing my face and feeling really guilty. I was craving pasta, chocolate, and pie crust… pretty much bread things, which always upsets me because I have a fear of bread unless it is wheat bread and in the first half of the day.
I like food but I think I probably have some weird notions about how much I can really eat without going overboard. As for carb cravings… fruits and veggies are the base of my diet and I probably eat them more than anything else- what gives? :mad:
difficult schedule of working today- it was really really hot in the middle of the day which was my chance to do stuff… I went for a 40 minute walk just so that I could do SOMETHING, I guess it’s alright for me to take an easy day. The ankle has been feeling better than it did a week ago, but it still hurts on and off.
My abs are sore today, that is what i get for being a lazy ass and not doing core.
i just read your journal. you seem like a cool girl and i think you need some rest. your coaches kind of remind me of mine. sometimes ill be running as many as 8 events in 2 or 3 days! good luck with your college career i think you got a lot more in you.
I think I have a LOT more in me as long as I don’t get run into the ground!
I am ridiculous, I need to figure out some kind of structure and make a plan and write it down and post it on my face because I didn’t do anything today :o
yeah yeah so i went to work and went to the movies and to dinner… so shoot me, I am human
I was reminded of this workout when I recommended it to someone else, so I went out and did it today. This was my favorite from last year, but today I remembered why it took me a lot of distance volume to work up to doing it continuous!
-5 min. WU jog
-5 min. fast run, 5 min jog
-4 min. fast run, 4 min jog
-etc etc down to 1 and 1, then 5 min. cool down jog
The key to this one is to make sure the fast parts are actually fast, and they speed up as the increments get smaller. When I’m tired or running distances I often revert back to heel-strike running, so I keep myself turning over by focusing on landing on my toes when I get tired. Last year it took me a week or two doing this workout every couple days to be able to do the whole thing without stopping, so today I did have to take breaks. :o
The whole thing took 40 minutes- 10 of it was WU and cooldown, 15 was jog, and 15 was fast. Of the 15 jogging, I walked for 5: the first minute after 5 and the last minute before 4, then 1 after 4, 3 and 2. Even so, it felt good to be out pushing myself after a couple of lazy days. I like to do this workout as a trail run, but I ended up being on pavement a lot going to the trail and back… ouch. My ankle feels alright though, just need to stretch…
eurgh… came home kinda depressed- me and my dad aren’t speaking (again) and that always kind of puts a damper on the quality of my training. Sure enough, true to form, my ankle started to hurt (this was hours after my run) and now I am really stressed out.
Hamstrings were tight after running, but after stretching they are alright… quads have felt tired since running but not painful- I can just feel them. I really miss lifting and I really want to get stronger this summer- I’ve slowly come to realize that my upper body strength is pretty sad, my core strength is OK, and my lower body is pretty strong but in the real world (i.e. outside my lazy team which I have graduated from now…) it’s probably still not that great.
Arghhh everything is so frustrating and I don’t know what I should be doing and when I asked the Williams coach about it he was like, ‘enjoy the summer and relax.’ Ummm right
I really want to get out and take a breather for a few but that might lead to instant death… so instead I am on hunger strike. :eek:
Oh! and p.s. I met someone from this forum today (besides clem) but I’m not sure what his name is on here… nice guy though, knows his strength training! You guys continue to impress.
I ALSO pinpointed the origin of all the ankle pain- it hurts across the top now most and I can trace it up my leg right against the bones, but I think it radiates from here: right where the guy’s thumb is: http://www.csuchico.edu/phed/atc/Ankle/Fig47.jpg Thoughts? I don’t know if knowing this changes anything in terms of how to treat it. Just looking at that picture makes me squirm.
With the way your training and meet schedule has been a couple months active rest could do wonders for you next season.
Get yourself all healed up and enjoy your summer and you’ll hit training really well and hard next season
You definitely do not want to go into College burnt out.
Regenerate your body and mind and have fun with non track, non stressful (mentally) activities
I am sure when college starts the training and the transition to college life will be a little tough. If you go in with a clear mind and fresh body you’ll handle it very well imo
: 
Ummm right
