Sunday, March 16, 2008

more LBL second guessing

It’s been a week since LBL and can't get it out of my mind that I've performed progressively worse each year. Even though not in the shape I was in last year, I’m convinced of several reasons for my latest disappointment -- one has been very obvious from the outset. After a speed work yesterday, I confirmed what was already suspected -- I have NO speed. Since I don’t care much for running on hard surfaces, I’ve been grossly negligent in scheduling speed works, and because, for the most part, had been mainly focusing on endurance training this year with the McNaughton 100 miler on tap this spring. The biggest benefit of the speed workouts is that I really notice they give my legs a wider range of motion. I had no range of motion in the LBL race. In the quicker pace of the 1st part of the race I was using muscles I had not stretched out in a long time. With Clinton Lake coming up in less than 2 weeks, I’m wary of another speed work though -- just too close, especially since the long break from doing them regularly and afraid I'll overdo it. Will go back to training on sloppy trails this week & think more about it. Also, planning on looking into adding 5K or 10K races into the training schedule to help on the speed issue in the future.

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