Making Progress

This has been a decent week of training so far, and if I can close it out well, it may even exceed my expectations. My ankle seems to be fine now, and the aches and pains I was having in my left hamstring and right achilles seem to be getting better by the day. I have to feel that my abandonment of stretching has something to do with that. I’ve had an on-again/off-again relationship with stretching for years, and I may pay for ceasing the activity before all is said and done, but as of right now, not stretching seems to have things headed in the right direction.

As an alternative to stretching, I’ve been doing some strengthening and range-of-motion activities that I’m hoping will help in more than one way. I’ve also been doing a good bit of massage via various tools like a foam roller, The Stick, and even rolling on a baseball (I recommend starting with a tennis ball, by the way). I’m hoping that will address any weakness and/or imbalances I have and keep me loose as well.

Right now my primary goal with running is simply to get to a point where I can train hard and enjoy it. Thanks to various limitations, I haven’t really been able to train hard consistently in quite a while, and I certainly haven’t enjoyed it much of the time. I have no race aspirations for the time being, although competing in some Masters Championship events in 2014 is still something I very much want to do. However, before I worry about competing, I want to get my fitness level higher than it’s been over the past several years, and that means I have A LOT of work to do!

Speaking of doing work, last night I did an aerobic threshold workout consisting of four times a mile with a 60 second recovery jog between each interval. ECAT was in full effect and my heart rate indicated I was working a little harder than I probably should have been for this sort of workout, but overall I was fairly pleased with how it turned out. I was able to run more volume than I did in the previous week’s A.T. session while also running a slightly faster pace and feeling better and stronger. It was a sign that I’m already making some progress, which is all I can ask for. Tomorrow evening I’ll be back on the track looking to build a little speed. Onward!