Work your Weakness aka "Hey, Mike, STFU!" Challenge (Page 26)

Nice going Matt!

Outstanding Matt.  Hard worked paid off nicely and sounds like you executed well.

I had a PR by 18 seconds.  21:12.  Was 10th OA out of 180 and won my age group.  The training plan I've been following and work going into this carried me through and I know there is a lot more there.  I forgot my watch and didn't realize it until I was shredding my sweats right before the start.  I am a total clock watcher and I have my Garmin set to give me half mile splits.  I felt very strong the first mile and tried to keep it reeled in a bit.  Given the last part of the race and my time I think I still went out way to fast though.  Second mile still felt pretty good and I was just cruising along.  At the two mile mark there was a turnaround and as I went rounding it somewhere between my Achilles and my calf I felt a sharp strain. I've had Achilles issues in the past and calf but this was right between them.  I kept up my intensity but shortened my stride and altered my stride to come down on my heel instead of pushing off by mid-sole.  Still hurt but I think I was protecting it enough to not do much more damage.  I'm hoping it will be ok in a day or two.  I think if I had not limped in and paced things better I would have been well under 21 but I'll take this as a major gain and am celebrating today.  +2 VDOT's!!  Oh, and all your words of advice and encouragement played through my mind during the race which was really nice.  Thanks all.

Good job!  I think this "work your weakness" challenge helped both of us keep accountable as we headed into our races today.

Like you, I believe my training definitely carried me through.  When I broke 40 the first time, I almost crumbled at the finish line.  This time around instead of fighting off vomiting I was able to actually celebrate at the finish.  It was a great race that made every run up to this point worth it. 

Hopefully your Achilles keeps holding up.  We need to keep staying the course to see what we're capable of!

Thanks Matt.  No doubt the training made a huge difference.  I felt like I had a strength from training that allowed me to power through with much more confidence to keep my head up, run with good form, and I know I had another finishing gear but will have to wait another day for that. 

Thanks Dale.  I think I protected it enough that it will be ok after a few days.  I'm trying to figure out what happened because I'm a worrier and this will weigh in the back of my mind for a while. 

Yeah, Steve!

Nice, nice, race :)  I'm so sorry your achilles/calf thing happened: /  I will send healing vibes your way as I know this has been a plague in the past. 

+2VDOTs.  Man, you guys are setting the bar HIGH.  Very inspirational.  Just awesome. 

Way to hold that pace...wow. 

Oh, and with your new VDOT, you just get to work harder.  :/

21:12...I kinda like the ring of that...sorta reminds me of a Rush album I know (yeah, I know... I'm old).

2 VDOTs???  Man, this is group is KILLIN' it!!!  Take it easy for a few days and make sure that calf thing is OK.  Hope it's just one of those tweaks we all feel when we run and then they just go away.

Awesome job on your races, Matt and Steve!!

For me this week:
Core 2/3 workouts done

Hip 3/3 done

Achilles 3/3 done

Not perfect but better than the 0 workouts on each of the 3 last week!

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Good job Kirsten.  What are you doing for your Achilles?  I may need to start on some preventative maintenance.

Got my first 'R' workout in this morning following a 6 mile 'L' run yesterday.  4 x ~300M with full recoveries.  I ran them (and pretty much the whole run) on grass to ease up on the joints a bit.  I found it tough to gauge the pace...was supposed to be around 6:30/mi or so but would up around 7:00/mi for the reps.  My Garmin was too slow to react to the pace.

I felt really good running...hit another weekly mileage high with 22 this week.  Weather was awesome this weekend...about 40 degrees yesterday morning and 45 this morning with light winds...perfect running weather.

Mostly eccentric heel drops.  This is a good video.  I do the last part of this mostly, but when I was seeing a physio, I went through the whole progression.  Also, I continue to use my 'non-injured' side to get back to the up position.  So I drop on one, go back up with two.  I read an interesting article about Achilles and poor glutes that may interest you too.

Great stuff, Nicole! 

5,000 yd workout at masters last night was fun. A few things that I worked. Keeping the extension into the downswing a continuous motion. Didn't really glide, but also wasn't always going right through it as smoothly as I should. Later in the set, had to remember to roll around the barrel and then pull. Have a habit of extending and kind clomping down at times. Also had to work on not trying to kick too much to compensate for arms getting tired. Everything going through the underarm area was burning, but it's supposed to and have to keep making it do that. Switching things up to relieve that doesn't help towards development.

That's a great workout and does a good job of making you focus on form when you get fatigued.

Hope you all are having a good Monday and are ready to work those weaknesses this week :)

I just wanted to thank you all for your participation in this thread.  I am learning a lot from you all and it is really helping with my motivation.

Kirsten--I checked out that article you posted about achilles/glute connection.  I realized my achilles problems started when I backed off on my weight training and yoga.  I have decided to re-up on my strength work and see if that helps.  Thanks for that link!

Nicole--Congrats on that run.  Win.  I have confiscated one of my kid's rolling pins (the rolling part is only about 6") and have been rolling out my legs and it seems to be helping a lot.  You, Kirsten and Salty have motivated me to be working more actively on my lower legs with stuff like that.

Gretchen and Steve--I feel like my food shift stuff is going much better. I brought my lunch every day last week and have been better about eating breakfast. Definitely seems to make the evening go better.  How's that going for you? 

Big congrats again to our recent racers and VDOT earners! 

I'm really going to try to focus on reincorporating strength work and resting appropriately.  The Skiba book we're reading for the Oct/Nov book club has really convinced me that I suck at that.  I almost feel like it's fighting a training disorder of sorts.  Harder is not necessarily better.  More is not necessarily better. Longer is not necessarily better.  Trying to retrain my brain to not fall into those patterns.  Those voices are louder than I think I've been willing to admit, which I think can get a little complicated because I often use exercise as a kind of therapy and the "release" comes with the longer or harder work.  I'm hoping bring some yoga back in will help me counter some of that stuff and stay focused on the big picture.

x2 to this entire paragraph!!!  I totally agree about feeling a release only with harder or longer training.  I'll even take it a step further and say that at times if I'm not training long or hard, I don't even feel like my metabolism is active.  It's like food will just sit in my stomach and not digest.  I think for me, much of that is just mental.  It's really hard to overcome.  

Currently food seems to vaporize the instant I take it.

I stretched my normal weekly cycle to a 10 day cycle. Keeping just 2 quality days and doing more mileage. I got a nice hard 14-miler in yesterday. Not hard because it was fast but hard because it was on the trails and I had about 1500' elevation gain. I found a 50 dollar bill on my run, too!!

This cycle will end on Wednesday then I will taper off two days before a 5K road race. Then I will pick back up for an easy week before XC regionals in Portland. I made the top 10 so our club is paying my lodging/travel. Which is really nice. I guess that $50 will just have to go to the beer budget

I've been really focusing on safety. Doing the obvious but not so fun things like wearing bright colors and lights. Stopping at red lights and no headphones. 

HAHA! You think?  

Glad you are tackling this! 

I have found that when you are antsy about wanting to do "more" invest that time in some supplemental strength exercises and recovery stuff like icing/rolling etc. It helps to "fill the void" a bit.

Celebrating is over.  I start back to building up for my marathon this week.  I have a 16ish miler (2hr10min) run this weekend, so it's back to working on my patience.