Love Those Lampposts

Last night was my first time running again since last Tuesday and boy, could I tell! I had taken the week off because my knee was in some major pain, which I think has to do with me pushing so hard.

It's crazy how taking a week off can totally throw you off, though.

I was huffing and puffing at the beginning of the workout and it just didn't feel right.

I had decided to run with the Intermediate group last night because I knew that just being in the environment of the Advanced group would make me push too hard and just make me injured again. It sort of drove me crazy mentally to do this, but I know it would have been bad news if I ran with them.

So OUR workout was a pacing workout. We ran from the Indian Statue in the Park all the way up to the Reservoir loop (a little over a mile) going effort level 4 (not a sprint, but darn close) for 6 lampposts and effort level 1 (recovery run pace) for 3 lampposts. Repeat repeat repeat. When we got to the reservoir, we did 2 loops doing the same thing. The posts here were closer together, which meant that your fast part was over so much faster, but then again, so was your recovery.

I tried not to sprint (like I would have in the Advanced group) but keep a good pace and effort. Since the intervals were so short I didn't really time them. Besides, Coach Christine told us not to do this. We were supposed to be going on an equal amount of effort...so our later ones would probably be slower if we were doing the exercise correctly.

I was monitoring my heartrate though. My resting HR is between 64-67 bpm. When I finished an EL4 portion my HR was consistently 174 over and over. During the way short recovery period it went down to 164-166.

I didn't realize how hard this workout was until I got about 3/4 of the way around the first loop. I was dying for my 6th lamppost and when I reached it there was no EL1 running for me. I slowed that baby down to a walk for three lampposts and hoped that the coaches didn't see me.

I did this twice more on the second loop because I just couldn't handle those intervals!

It was funny, though.

When we got back and were stretching as a group, Coach Christine said she saw some of us walking on the recovery. I was like 'Uh oh. Caught!' But she said that was ok, because it meant that we were really pushing ourselves on the other part, which is what we were supposed to do, and we SHOULD be tired.

Good.

I also talked to Ramon about my knee. He prescribed lots of cross-training and strength exercises, which I kind of thought. That's good though. I think the cross-training really IS helping my running. I will learn to love those 90 degree squats, I just know it.