Well if you follow this blog at all you may have been wondering where the heck I have been.
The best I can answer is that I have been off getting old!
I took off from running for all of July and then started up again the first of August hoping for a nicely recovered and rejuvenated body to be ready and waiting to finally do some quality running. What I found waiting for me at the beginning of August was and old worn out body with a calf that is still screwed up and a temperamental knee that seemed worse than it has been in years. Yet I had the added bonus of being out of shape and not used to the heat any more so I had become very slow. I tried a run or two with no compression socks or wrap on my calf and it was immediately obvious that I was not going to be able to run with out some aid. For whatever reason I am able to run with a compression wrap on my right calf but if I go more than 2 miles without it I am in pain and walking. As for the knee well I have had that problem for years and it is just something I deal with.
The surprise is just how slow I have gotten. Taking off a few weeks in the winter is not so bad because you don’t have to acclimate. In summer it can be very difficult to come back to fitness because you just can’t get used to the intense heat. I have realized that by not swimming this summer I have not stayed in near as good of shape as I have in other summers. Swimming is fun by there are just not enough hours in the day. I think it also does a lot to keep your body in tune with the temperature and allows you to run and bike better in the heat. I think mid day swimming is probably much more beneficial to a triathlete than morning swimming. Although I can point you to lots of very fast triathletes who swim in the morning. It is starting to cool down a little bit so maybe in a few more weeks I can expect to see a little better flow on my runs.
I have felt small tastes of improvement here and there but then I have a day where I can’t run more than 15 minutes without walking due to fatigue. I am hoping that it is just the heat that is killing me and not lack of ability. I ran a race 2 weeks ago that was 5 miles long and was able to run at a 7:10 pace without too much trouble but then the next day I went for a run and after 2 miles I had to walk back to the car. 2 years ago I ran the first 20 miles of
So I have been plugging away at things wondering if I will ever get fast again. I sure hope that the past few years of running were just that – “the past few years” and not “the good old days”. It bothers me to think that there comes a time when everybody slows down and can’t attain there best times any longer and my time may be here. Naaaa can’t be
