I’m also pretty annoyed when I look at the splits I was
running fourth by quite a margin when I dropped out.
Plenty of other athletes better than me have DNF’d, look at
Paula Radcliffe in the Athens marathon, Ryan Hall in this year’s Olympics, or
however many more. I can remember
reading about one Olympic runner who anticipating hot and humid conditions did
part of his training in a sauna, I think he still lost anyway. And what about all those attempts at the summit of Everest before the successful one? The question is therefore, was I beaten by
the conditions, or did I simply fail to prepare properly?
Currently I’m leaning towards the latter. I could have practiced running in the rain,
or on softer ground more, I could have done more strength work, I could have
run further in training. Either way, it’s
irrelevant now for that race. Let’s look
forward and think about what I might do next time.
One thing I’ve been doing is to try and lengthen and
strengthen my hamstrings with eccentric exercises i.e. those that contract
while lengthening. One of the causes of
my difficulties in the race, apparently, is short hamstrings caused by running and
cycling, and the yoga is obviously not doing enough for it. So since then, at least twice a week I’ve
been doing this:
Warm up
Straight Leg deadlift x 10 x 45kg,
lunge x 15 each side, Single Leg squat x 15 each side
X 3
good morning x 10 x 20kg,
press up x 20,
tricep dip x 15
X 3 sets,
eccentric HS curl 3 x 10,
ITB stretches 5 mins or so.
Seems to be having some effect both on hamstrings and muscle mass, as I’ve put on about a kilo, but my
waist remains unchanged or maybe slightly smaller.
The only problem though is that my fitness appears to have
dropped off a cliff since the race. I
was planning to enter either a marathon in early Nov or a 38 miler in late
November, but at the moment I don’t think I’ll be in any
condition to enter either of them.
Either it’s a massive loss of fitness, or the cough that I seem to have developed
about two weeks after the race is having more of an effect than I thought. I’ve had it for about ten days now and on
today’s run I was really struggling.
I was effectively running at my 10km heart rate, but at
slower than my HM pace, and had to stop and walk twice for a breather. Time to start a few MAF runs I think, build
up the aerobic base again.
Today’s run for the record was
9.47km / 50:21 / 5:19 per km / AHR 155 / MHR 176
That max HR is truly shocking for what is essentially a flat
loop. Yes it’s warm and humid today but
that really is not an excuse.
I also feel a bit like I’m back to square one on the zero drop
running as my calves are sore for a couple of days after a run at the moment
which I have not had for a long time now.
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