October 30, Saturday

Despite dire weather forecasts for this morning, the running conditions were excellent at Holmdel Park for today’s final 5k of the Fall Cross Country Series.  My race performance was not as good as I expected.  I ran 30:34.  I am disappointed because during the race I felt like I was running very well.   I broke well and covered the first hills in a relaxed manner.  I approached the first mile mark with confidence and ran the bowl under control. I skirted the large hill without burning legs for the first time and recovered quickly for a  surge to the teannis courts.  The final  1200m seemed quick with a solid finishing kick.  Reading  the clock at the end was  an unpleasant surprise.  So, I finished 2nd in my age group for the series.   😏

My summary of the series.  I ran very well in race one and beat the guy who ultimately won the age group.  Ran the  next four race with basically no training  and sore calf muscles. Even skipped one because of night time calf cramps.  My hunch is that the lack of  training for a whole month caught up with me today.  My legs felt fine at last, but I had no aerobic strength to sustain pace.   The good news is that my legs are sound and I am ready to move forward and get back into shape.  That begins with a month of aerobic work. I see a turkey race somewhere in the near future!  🦃

Stats are all back on track!

October 25, Monday

I wish that I had said this. It should be posted in every high school cross country locker room.

Bad Athletes- Don’t take much seriously

Average Athletes- Take track meets seriously

Good Athletes- Take Meets and Practice seriously

Great Athletes- Take academics, nutrition, rest, hydration, warm-ups, cool downs, summer workouts, practice and meets extremely seriously

October 22, Saturday

This morning marked week five of the fall cross country series. The race was held at Fox Hill Recreation area, a course I had never run before.  The racing conditions were ideal. It was 53*, with a lite sprinkle of rain, a beautiful grass covered course and I was fortified with my modified calf sleeves.  After three weeks of very light training because of sore calves, my legs felt quite lively as I warmed up today.

I am proud  say I started  strongly and ran competitively throughout the race.  My right half muscle ached throughout, but it didn’t have an impact on my ability to run. The result was my best time of the season;  27:44.  I am much more confident now that this puts me on track for a positive finish in the final 5K of the season at Holmdel Park next Saturday.

Steady Stats.

October 19,  Tuesday

Workouts and postings are still being hampered by sore calves.  Today was the best workout I did it in over a week. At the clubhouse I rode the bike for 10, elliptical for 10, treadmill for 10,  weights for 10 and swam for 20 minutes, followed by 15 minutes in hot whirlpool.  I plan to repeat that scenario tomorrow. Every time I have tried to do a running workout for the last two weeks my calves have  seized on me and made it impossible to run.  Night time cramps have also plagued my sleep.  Have not had sleeping cramps since college.  But today was better. Yesterday I actually cut my compression socks to make them simply calf sleeves. That might have helped.  Also using heat a few times a day.  It might have been a good idea to do these measures sooner, but I did not understand or appreciate the depth of this injury. I expected the soreness to simply disappear in a day or two.  Well, that never happened for almost three weeks.  I skipped Saturday’s race at Big Brook Park for fear of  aggravating the injury. I am hoping to try racing on Saturday at Wolf Mountain, a course I have never seen.  It would be great to be ready to  race hard at Holmdel Park on October 30, the final race of the Autumn season.  To be continued………..🤔💭

Stats –  I have been too bummed out to note.  Ok I guess.

October 10, Sunday

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”   Samuel Beckett

After another frustrating week with sore calves,  I approached Saturday’s race with more trepidation.  My run on Tuesday ended abruptly with a feeling in my left calf muscle that something really bad that happened. I was forced to walk home the last mile barely able to take a stride longer then one foot because of the pain in the calf muscle.  On Wednesday Thursday and Friday I only walked. On Saturday morning I still felt soreness as I did a truncated warm up.  It was probably a mistake to try to run in the race, but I thought I’d give it a shot.   It was a perfect morning to race and the trails at Tatem Park  were beautiful.  But I was only able to jog the course in 33 minutes.  It was impossible to push off my left foot without considerable pain on each stride.  I plan to bike, swim, whirlpool and lift this week with no running at all.  My explanation for this injury is twofold. First is the amount of speed segments I’ve been running on almost every workout for a month. And second is the addition of my spikes at the Holmdel course two weeks ago.  This is the  only foot or leg problem I have experienced in over a year. So, I feel fortunate and I must recover with deliberation.  My new goal is to have a triumphant return to Holmdel Park in three weeks.🙂

Stats are holding steady except for sore leg.

October 2nd, Saturday

The last two weeks have been very interesting to me. After my previous post about how I had run myself a little tired after a few overly enthusiastic workouts, I was forced to do a week of very lite work leading up to the 1st, on September 25th, in the series of six 5K races I will be running this fall..  I approached that 1st 5K at Holmdel Park with trepidation. I had no idea how my body  would respond to the lite work after the hard work. It turned out that I ran a comfortable 29:48 at Holmdel.  That was about 30 seconds slower than my performance at the same time on the same course last year, not bad.

Following that race I had very severe soreness in my calf muscles notably because it was the 1st time I had worn spikes in over a year .  But, uncharacteristically, the soreness lasted the entire week. So, I spent another week doing basically jogging or walking.  Accordingly.  I approached today’s race again with trepidation. However, I was pleased to be able to run very comfortably and very relaxed and break 29 minutes at Johnson Park.  That is only 15 seconds slower than last year on the same course. So, given all the trepidations, and another year logged on the body, I survived the 1st two weeks of the  autumn 5K series in relatively good shape.    😏

Stats hanging  tight among all the September chaos.🤒