Today marked the second week of shaking off the cobwebs on my body from off-season. I ran Rancho San Antonio and started looping on my favorite hill run to build up my leg strength. I did two loops of the Coyote Trail whose path looks like this:
From Parking Lot to bridge where hill begins: .77 mile
Hill, steepest section to switchback where it levels off: .22 mile
Hill, rolling but mostly slight grade upward, to the top of the hill: .66 mile
Major downhill, some steep sections: .46 mile
Flat, gentle rolling back to start: .29 mile
Total: 2.4 miles per loop
Back in NYC Marathon training, I did this loop 7 times for a 2:42 run, total miles = 17. The last loop was definitely tough as I tried to accelerate up it and barely made it to the top. This year, I want to repeat this training to build hill strength in my legs, which I severely lack.
But I am still trying to solve my right foot problems, which plagued me when Asics changed the shape of their standard shoe. I am getting Graston done on my foot as well as fighting blisters from rubbing. I am still experimenting with different shoes and running without orthotics. So far, it looks like the standard (narrower for ’07) Asics shoe is working, but without orthotics (thankfully running Pose method means I can forego my orthotics), and I am still getting severe blisters on the bottom of my feet. I will try to tie my shoes tighter so my feet don’t slop around and hope this gets me to a no-or-minor blister condition with proper running.
Likewise, I went out last Saturday on a 1:52 bike ride, going from Cupertino along Foothill Expressway and its gentle rolling terrain to Page Mill Road, and then returning to go back into the hills around Stevens Creek Reservoir and then do hill repeats on Mt. Eden Road. I did only one repeat as I knew this would be a build process, so next weekend I hope to do 2, and increase by 1 repeat thereafter every week.
Swimming has been really great. I trained for two months with a self-created progression of using paddles and different interval sets to really boost my strength on short sets (1500-2000m). Now as I jump to normal distance sets (ie. 3000-4000m), I am pleasantly finding that my strength in my stroke is lasting to the end of the set. This is an extremely positive development as it bodes well for maintaining a stronger stroke for a longer time, and thus faster swim times.
The ole’ muscles are protesting the back-to-training-stress and Graston and ART are on the menu each week until they adapt.