Go Hard

It is possible to find some form of reference to justify almost any nutritional guideline. A lot of these will even appear to be good science. Throw in all the opinion pieces and ideologies on the topic of what food you should be eating there is no end to contradictions. In my view nutrition is important. Day to day nutrition won't win you a race, but poor nutrition can cost you a race. Amongst other things, I believe a less than adequate approach to my food contributed to my hamstring injuries. Why? A combination of laziness and an over emphasis of hitting a certain race weight. I had falling into the habit of not planning ahead with my food, and often grabbing what was faster and easier. This isn't an ideal approach and becomes magnified when work shifts encompass two meals. On top of this I tried to keep a limit on my intake in order to shed a couple of kilograms to be lighter for the marathon. As the time went on I found I had to eat less and less to lose a small amount o...

Finally a long run came together. Great weather, great trails and the running felt good. Despite being well away from the paces I'd really like to be hitting, everything else appears to be on track. Not quite what I'd call a therapeutic but it was a good indicator my body is finally getting back into shape. At the moment the numbers and science is somewhat distracting, and makes it harder to hit a good mindset about my training. This particular run helped highlight that focusing on the process, the now and the art of running does more than just feel good. The numbers do not mean much if there isn't the rhythm, fluidity or naturalness to my running. There is a big difference between forcing the legs to hit a certain pace versus that pace being the final outcome of getting it right .

Despite describing my training plan in my last post, I haven't exactly followed it this week. Nothing to with my fitness or motivation. Sometimes other things in life trump what essentially comes down to recreation. Nothing too bad, but when one of the little ones has a tonsillectomy, the recovery for them means lots of time by his side, very regular medications and not much sleep. So naturally that takes the place of training. From a running point of view the week has been wiped. One thing to learn from this episode is how important sleep is. While in theory I do know this, and should have learnt from past mistakes that  sleep deprivation is a bad thing . Being a shift worker I am very familiar with running on reduced shut-eye. That familiarity also means I tend to underestimate just how tired I am and can persist in pushing through when I shouldn't. I tried getting in some training, but it is amazing just how sore the body can become purely from a lack ...

I'm starting to feel like a runner again. This really just comes from the fact that I've been for a run nearly every day for the last couple of weeks. I've had to rethink my approach so as not to develop the same problems that limited the marathon. Those problems still exist to a certain extent, so there is a good deal of rehabilitation required within the training. So here's the basic outline of my current training approach... I only have two races planned at this stage. First up is as part of a relay team at the Surfcoast Century in September where I'll be covering 28km in the hilly section. Second on the list is the Two Bays Trail 56km in January. I am hoping to throw a few more events in, but I'll see how the body goes. With those races in mind, the basic structure is a 9 day cycle that looks little something like this... easy Intervals easy Hill sprints easy Threshold easy Long easy The easy runs are exactly that, easy. Something between 40...

Alright, back into it. Time to train big, think big, dream big, eat big and rehabilitate big. I celebrated this new go big mentality with a massive track session of 2x1000m. After the lack of running recently, that hit the legs harder than is traditional for me. Not exactly the levels of training I tend to aspire to. Of course I have the hamstring injury to blame. With a bit of creativity I should be able to get nearly two years worth of excuses out of that. Rather than big kilometres and huge intensity I have to take a different approach. Maybe I have to focus the on big picture instead. As appealing as having a pig head buried in the sand can be, forcing the kilometres up and ignoring current limitations may not be the best approach. So reality, wisdom the weakest link all combine to dictate the limits of my training. The big picture includes running for life, but also more than that. Just running is not enough. I still want to improve. Run faster races, and run longer...

Right, I'm building back into running. The blogging should also increase. So what's happened since my marathon in Traralgon fell apart? I took 3 weeks away from running. For me that's is a ridiculously long time, and in the last 17 years, I've only ever gone that long without a run maybe twice at most. Why 3 weeks? It wasn't all injury related. A two week holiday in Malaysia with the family played a big role in the time frame. While there was some good running option where we stayed, I simply had no interest in exploring them. Sun, cocktails and pool were the clear winners. However, I did get into the weights a fair bit and focused on some important rehabilitation. So what went wrong back in the marathon? The short version is I did a hammy . The longer version is more complicated. Unlike a sprinter or football player, the injury wasn't from a one incident where I felt it go . Instead it has been building to be a significant problem over quite a period of t...

A good time out from this race I had big goals. Not only was I looking for a PB, but I was aiming to absolutely smash it. Reality got in the way. Life, work, sleep (lack of) and plenty of other things collectively limited my training time. That isn't an excuse or complaint, but an acceptance of the way things are. As a result I haven't devoted any time to updating this blog. The energy or interest in it hadn't been there. After all, I was struggling to get in the training I needed. Coming into the race I'd refined my goal to still having a crack at breaking my 2:58 PB. Some of training had gone quite well. I felt very comfortable at race pace, my nutrition was well tested and I had honed my sense of pace and efforts very well. What was missing was any extended sessions at race pace or any runs at all beyond 32km. That was a big deficit in the required endurance. Despite the last point I still planned on the sub-2:58 with an all or nothing race plan. Race morn...