Sunday, June 19, 2011

Forced Rest, Slowtwitch Muscles and Other Musings

I mentioned in my last post that my swim on Thursday was kind of rough. In truth, I wasn't entirely disappointed to have the 1500 meter event cut short. I did the run at a faster than normal clip and by the end, I was pretty fried.

Add to that, my Wednesday 30 mile bike ride left me feeling a little dizzy (after I got off the bike, fortunately) and on yesterday morning's run, my HR was up around 159 even though I was going no faster--slower in fact--than the BolderBoulder where it was lower.

So when the alarm went off this morning for me to go and ride 35 miles...well I rolled over and went back to sleep. I think I've hit something of a wall and indications are I need a couple of days off.

The list on Runner's World located here suggests I'm hitting around four of the ten warning signs with those being sleep, energy level, pain, and performance. As I don't own a pulse oximeter, I don't know where my oxygen saturation stands, but it would not surprise me to see that it is low.

Running has also been a particular struggle. With the exception of the BolderBoulder, my pace has been off and finishing longer runs has been a challenge. I expect I've been focusing a little too much on run shorter distances in shorter times. I won't go so far as to say faster because I am definitely not fast. However, my 5k time has been dropping quite a bit, and I think that my be to the detriment of my longer runs. In essence, the fast-twitch fibers have been developed but less so the slow twitch. That's a theory, but what I'm seeing seems to fit with it. My plan does call for me to start increasing the distance over the next couple of weeks so hopefully that will help.

Perhaps best of all, I don't feel too guilty about missing this morning's ride. I miss being out on the open back roads of eastern Douglas County, but they are not going anywhere. Having a day or two to rest my body actually sounds pretty good. My next scheduled work out is for 45 minutes in the pool on Tuesday afternoon so more than 48 hours from now. What's more, the pool is easier on my body, particularly my left knee and my right foot, than any ride or run.

If my time off does not re-energize me, then the problem may be bigger than I thought, but I'm feeling fairly confident that things will improve this week.

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