I spent a mid August week in Mammoth Lakes coaching and hanging out with my old high school and our small but awesome crew of coaches plus some parents that came along. I unfortunately couldn't run too much due to the same foot issues I've had most of the summer but managed to get in some of the teams short double runs and I biked everything else with them. It turned out to be a low volume week of biking too though because I wasn't getting in all the commute biking that I was doing back home, but I didn't mind too much.
I had been wondering how volume increases on a bike may effect me weeks/a month or more later if I did an awful lot (for me). So having this lower week was kind of comforting. By the way, a big week of biking for me was/is 10 hours so take that however you wish but it seemed appropriately high for me given my inexperience with serious cross training for running.
 |
| Coach Todo, Clemons and Myself at the bottom of Mammoth Rock trail waiting for any stragglers. |
Even though I only ran about 10 miles in the 5 days in ML, I was still very satisfied with the trip. I added up the weeks I've spent training in Mammoth and its now over 4 months, including a summer of 2 months and another of 1 month. Add in various 1 week trips and I have enjoyed and come to love this mountain town quite a bit. During this trip, I had a ton of fun and shared a cabin with Steve (a team parent) and a great group of guys. I tried to impart some wisdom with the little time I had left with these guys, as I knew I'd be heading north for Oregon at the end of the next week.
It's odd coaching only for the summer as I have for the last couple seasons. Its been a blast but I don't get to see all the work unfold through seeing them race and helping them deal with nerves and strategy and all the stuff coaches do. I'm really only there for 6 weeks in summer, whereas the summer training we do will help keep them improving from July all the way to the next June. I do keep up on some results from the season and get updates though. Honestly I am pretty busy training/competing and life-ing on my own anyway so its cool to see how things progress both for them and myself.
 |
| Some of the team at Mammoth Creek park. Either pre or post workout and ice bath. Weather was great, it was a beautiful week. Photo by Mama Clemons. |
 |
| We went bowling! Around my waist is Lucan, a boy presumably raised by squirrels that we found running around the trails and streets of Mammoth(okay he belongs to the Clemons' and we brought him with us). He beat me in the first game but I pulled through with a PR performance in game 2 for the W. Photo by Mama Clemons |
Training and Fitness:
Through late August, I was incredibly unsure what to do in training. To run on the foot a little, not at all, or start to slowly bring running back in completely. I had a x-ray on my foot (and knee just to check from the bicycle incident) and the doc said there was nothing. After talking more, and with more people I realized that I should have continued to a specialist who could have diagnosed me better.... or at all. I was told by the doc that I had metatarsalgia which is just inflammation/irritation in the ball of the foot. So she just said to try and not run for 2 weeks then bring running back in slowly.
I told her I had done that twice already. To clarify... On two separate occasions I didn't run at all for 2 weeks then started bringing in running only to find the same foot irritations. So she just kind of got me out of the room and on my way and I kept biking with minimal running. Due to not running but still hoping to compete in the XC season, from early July onward I kept up with biking pretty seriously. For about 6 weeks I biked as little as 4 and as much as 11 hours per week. This was all what I called "quality" biking. If I biked to work and it took 45 minutes, I'd knock a few minutes off that for my training log if there was considerable coasting time because that isn't really "quality". This was how I was logging it anyway.
It was nearly impossible to prove but I felt fit. Despite not running more than 10 miles a week for about 2 months, I felt like if I HAD to, I could run a decent 5k considering all things. This was encouraging-which was great because if I didn't feel good about that, I wouldn't have much else to be happy about fitness-wise. It was hope. Hope that when the time came, I could begin transitioning my biking fitness into usable running fitness and put a season of XC together.
The coming weeks would entail making the move back to Ashland OR, meeting up with my team and coach and seeing where things went from there. Check back for the next update on being in Ashland and training...
Spoiler alert: I ran 30+ miles the week of 9/7/14!
No comments:
Post a Comment