working on it.

Ok heres the update. Went running a few days. I kind of wanted to see how the hip was doing and could wait no longer. Watching the olympics on tv is just driving me nuts. The marathon is tomorrow!!! I can't believe it's here. Go Ryan bring home the hardware!!!

Anyway the hip felt good although I only ran about 2 miles in the morning. Chest was so tight I could hardly breathe and I have a lot of rebuilding to do. That was a few days ago. The next day I jumped rope. I like doing that and will start implementing it more to build my quads and footspeed. I have been wanting to do it, but I guess i was scared to look like a fool out jumping rope in my driveway. But regardless it is a great workout and there is actually enough room in my small house where I can jump inside too. I took a day off because my legs were sore from those two days.

Today was great. Rather hot tonight, but after going shopping with April I drove out to my track. I've decided to do things right and did a warmup mile, then some light stretches, nothing much. In my head I'm already preparing for raceday. So I treated today's workout just like I would the morning of a race. I shook out my legs, relaxed, toed the line and started the first of my two "sprints". Actually I am going to call these time trials. The total distance was about a half mile, starting at a pole near the start of the course, and ending at a bench on the opposite side. I ran these faster than my slogging pace I've had to use since I'm out of shape.

First one was 3:22, I forgot to look at my ipod on the second so I don't know, but it may have been slightly faster. Breathing somehow was better on the second??? who knows what that is about. I jogged back to the "start" after both of these, repeating my ritual for the second. Then I did a mile cooldown.

I was tired, but not dead after all this and I'm starting to realize the truth in all the books I've read on running. All the time they speak of this "exhausted, but not overworked" state, and I was right there tonight. Not too hard, not worthless. So that is great and I'm really looking forward to the training. I don't know if I wrote this before, but I want to do speedwork once a week now, then twice a week as I close on my goal race. All miles will be logged, but total time instead of pace. I think one thing I do is race against my average pace and that hinders my recovery so I won't be worrying about pace except for time trails or specific speedwork days.

I am also adding things like jump rope and sittups/pushups/etc. on top of my running. I've actually been consistent with this while not running. The thing I was doing before was skipping them because I was so exhausted from a workout, or didn't do them because it would tire me for a workout. That is not good so now I do them every morning or night, regardless of my running.

THE HIP: duh duh duuuuuuh. Still after all this time and babying it is still bruised. It causes me no pain except the normal bruisy pain you feel with any other bruise. I don't think it's affecting my stride, and at this point that is my only concern. So as long as it doesn't hinder my running I am going to persevere through it.