corrections. cold water & cowabunga.

corrections

McGee's = Magee's (never bothered to actually look at the store)
Soari = Saori (had it right for a while.. ?)
Julie & Tammie/Connie = Julie & Kellie (still = good runners)

cold water

I don't know how many runners take ice water baths after they get done running, but I do sometimes. It was something that a friend of mine (and coach) in Nebraska did when training for an ultra. During our runs, he would talk about how he had already prepared the ice water bath so he could hop right in when he finished.

The benefit of an ice water bath is that it stops the blood in the legs from pooling, by constricting the blood vessels and capillaries. This will help speed up recovery time. In the most recent Runner's World, Scott Jurek mentioned that he walks through some cold water streams when he is finished with a run. Since I almost never have a cold water stream at the finish of my runs, I'll have to stick to the bathtub. (Even though I call it "ice water" I don't really use ice. Just really freakin' cold water.)

By the way, the ice water bath was the most painful part of my Saturday run!

cowabunga (see meaning here or here)

Saturday's run was my longest single run so far in this training cycle. Which means I do one thing on this run.... run. Seems pretty simplistic and obvious, but let me explain a little. My long runs are based on time not distance. This weekend I was scheduled to run 2:10. I don't use a heart rate monitor and I don't use a measured course. If I do run on a course that I know the distance (like at Todd's Road) then I try to be conscious about not looking at my watch.

The goal is to run based on RPE. (def: rating of perceived exersion) The goal of a long run is to develop physiologically several components of fitness (not discussed here), but I also try and use them to gain a complete feel for my body's responses. I guess you could say that I try and develop a more complete biofeedback system of my own.

So saturday I started running and felt really sluggish. I backed off to see if the intensity was too much. What I discovered is that it is just taking me a little longer to get completely warmed up now, which is a good sign. Once I felt warmed up I focused on a few things:

1. leg turnover (cadence)
2. breath rate and breath depth
3. body lean (trying to keep chest and hips up over feet)
4. how all three influenced my perceived exersion (rpe)

At 2:10, I stopped running. I was about a half mile from home, so I did some walking and used that time to cool down better. After a good stretch, I used mapmyrun.com to see how far I had run. It said 17.04 miles. This is completely wrong, I thought. I jumped in my truck and drove the course I had just run. My trip meter said, 17.2 miles. COWAGUNGA! That comes out to approximately a 7:39 pace.

I was thinking that 8:10 to 8:20 would have been a good result. There could be many factors for the run and one of them was the weather. Saturday was by far the nicest day we've had to run for quite some time.

Anyway I feel great about the run. This is week #4 of the training cycle and that means it is a down week. This means no threshold running (no Tuesday run at Magee's) and an overall decrease in volume.

Just what Nikki and I need to come back strong and ready to move on into phase 3 (re: Daniel's training phase equivalent.) Some extra sleep sounds great too!!