Another wacky workout today. I did 8 or so minutes of jogging, a bunch of drills and short runs, a few laps around the track, easy, barefoot, on grass, and then 4 fast 100s, and then 15 minutes cool down. I gotta get a goal and a program. Maybe I'll think about that this weekend.

you call this training!?

Well, sports fans, things are getting more and more haphazard. After last week's interval experiment resulted, predictably, in various aches and pains, I took a different approach to my next workout. I did a little light jogging and a lot of drills. It was all very mellow, so I was a bit surprised when a different constellation of aches and pains surfaced in the next few days. I went with kind of a middle ground today, and ran 20 minutes, easy, followed by a bunch of drills. I probably would have stretched the run out to 25 or 30 minutes, by my calves were starting to really hurt at the end of the run. I stretched out quite a bit, but there's some significant cramping and tightness. I'm not particularly perturbed by any of these aches and pains. As long as I don't get the shin splint pain, it's cool. The muscular stuff is no big deal, I just have to not push it too hard, and that's not too hard to figure out. Actually, one of my shins did start acting up a bit on one run, but I immediately started concentrating on my technique and it went away. I think sometimes I start letting the foot land too far in front of me, and then the shins start hurting.

Still gotta work on some kind of program to follow. I tried to think about it, but there were too many questions for me and I gave up. I'm going to keep going on instinct for now, and try above all not to reinjure myself.

I am feeling spunky about my current form. I think I've got something pretty darn close to right. So I promptly did what you're not supposed to do and ran a bunch. I did pose drills, 3 quarters at 99, 99, 92, pose drills, 2 quarters at 91, 90, pose drills, one quarter at 90, pose drills and a 200 at 37. Rests were sort of random, but on the shorter side. The 200 was just an afterthought that I ran with J as he was doing his 1200s workout. It was all a lot of fun and it felt easy. Then I cooled down for 14 minutes with J.

Honestly, I have no idea where to go from here as far as training goes. I'm aware that I can't hold my best pose form for very long. Training for me has never before been based on the running technique. Volume, VO2 max, lactate threshold, that's the stuff that I know. We'll see...

mini clinic notes

I am having trouble processing everything that happened in the clinic today. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the <4 hours of sleep that I got last night, due to staying up talking with friends, sleeping poorly because I was paranoid about sleeping through the alarm and missing the flight, and having to get up at 4:45 to get to the airport.

I'll get the sour note out of the way first. I'm annoyed because the pose website said there would be a maximum of 8 students, and there were 13 or 14, with another 3 who sat in on the course but didn't get video-taped. I am not exactly dissatisfied with the experience, but I would have preferred to have more time to talk about my video. Plus it just doesn't seem right...if you say you're going to limit it, limit it already.

It was interesting to see how different the Pose coach's take on the Pose method and related issues was from the message board brain trust. Cases in point: he doesn't reccommend something as minimal as the H-street, he talks a lot about having the right arm motion, he never told anyone that they have a late pull, (on the message board, virtually every beginner seems to have a late pull,) he talked about how your cadence can be too fast, his beginning drills were completely different from what's on the video and from what Jack would recommend to a beginner...there were a couple more points that I'm not remembering right now.

All in all, I feel a little more confused about the whole thing. The coach felt that my "before" video was pretty good, but that I wasn't getting my knees up enough. I wasn't totally sure what to make of that, but I increased my knee lift. Maybe I was flipping my heel up towards my butt instead of lifting it. The "after" video definitely looked less strained, and it felt better too. He also thought that my cadence was too high. I'm trying to pull as fast as I can, so that increases my cadence. To be honest, I'm a little unsure of that criticism, especially on the "after" video. He was watching me do a 5k race pace run in slo-mo so my cadence:speed ratio was pretty hard to figure.

I wonder if he's right about the knee thing, and that my tendency to flip the feet up in the back makes it look like I'm pulling somewhat later than I actually am, with too much of my stride in the back. The "after" video looked better in that respect, although I still had a straight trailing leg briefly.

I think the stretch cordz will be my next move. I also think I'm going to start training again, with significant training time spent on drills. I'll be thinking about all this, and will post a new program soon.

Well, I've had too much going on to really keep up on the blogging recently. I just started a full time internship and it's been a little intense. Plus, I've playing web developer and wrangling bringdownbush.org into shape, which has not been easy for me. I'm thinking that I'll have things on all fronts a little more under control next week, and hopefully I can go back to blogging a couple times a week. I've been doing my little workout, and although I must be fairly deconditioned by now, (never have been any good at cross training,) I think the technique is continuing to slowly improve. I think the pull is getting faster, although probably not quite there yet. I am excited about the Pose mini clinic this weekend. It'll be a long day because I'm flying down south and back the same day, but hopefully I'll learn a lot.

in a funk

I have so much anger and despair about the whole thing in New Orleans right now, it's hard to focus on much of anything else. As this is a running blog, I'll make a valiant attempt to stay on point.

I've been working on quickening my pull, and I'm not really sure if it's working. I'm definitely going to get myself some Stretch Cords, as Shawn suggested on the Pose forums, but we're hella broke right now, so I'm trying to wait until I get some more cash in my paypal account because I sold some stuff on ebay.

Actually, that's a blog-worthy situation. In the run-up to my switching to minimal shoes and then starting to learn Pose, I accumulated a pair of Nike Tailwinds, Nike Zoom Elites, Nike Frees, Nike Zoom Milers, two pairs of Nike Streak Vapor 4s, and, finally, a pair of Puma H-Streets. The only shoes I really wore enough to beat up were one pair of the Streak Vapors, and now the H-Streets. So I started selling all the maximal stuff on eBay, and it's been partially funding my Pose education. The Tailwinds I gave away, but the Frees and Milers both sold on eBay. No one wanted the Elites, and I haven't parted with the last pair of Streak Vapors, which are essentially new. I'm waiting on payment for a pair of Chaco sandals, which I Ioved back in the bad, old, orthotic days, but which now have too much heel and too much arch. As soon as that comes in, I'll have enough in my Paypal account for the Stretch Cords.

J runs another XC races this weekend, and I do not.... I'm gonna have to do drills for a long time this weekend to try and work out some of the frustration I'm feeling. Here we are in the richest country in the world, and look what's happening.