No - that's not a mis-spell. I haven't turned to alcohol to dull my pain. But come to think of it, it might not be that bad an idea.
And what pain is it that I want to dull? The pain of a body that's not used to running at speed. Sure, I run and run regularly but it's kind of an economical shuffle. Where my legs lift as little as possible to achieve my goal of moving forward. And where my feet barely leave the ground - as evidenced by the numerous times that I've almost tripped on uneven surfaces.
Yesterday, before we really got going on our speed session, Coach Chris had us do a couple of short, sharp sprints. He calls them stride-outs but we all know that they're sprints. Not more than 20m and building in pace. We only did four and today I hurt. Pathetic!
I know this might be a little confusing for the non-runners out there because it's a speed session and surely that must mean we're running really fast. But our speed sessions are aimed at building up endurance speed and generally the lengths of our repetitions are longer. So our pace is slightly more than our normal running pace but nowhere near a sprint. Yesterday the reps were 1k and you can't run 45 mins of 1k reps at sprint pace.
Sprinting is a whole different beast to endurance running. You have to hold your body more erect, engage your core and lift your legs higher. But I didn't think that 80m of sprinting (and not even that fast) would have me crippled the next day.
I'm not sure if the best way to stop this from happening is to do them more often or never do them at all. The way my legs are feeling today I'd vote for the 'never do them at all' option. But I rarely get a vote about what we're doing at speed. Even when I try to bribe the coach with cake.
On to other newsworthy events.
I have a new hobby. It's one that involves exercise and environmental issues and is aimed at preventing a fly infestation that could possibly take over the entire city of Brisbane.
Have you guessed it yet?
Give up? Okay - I'll tell you. My new hobby is collecting dog poo. Every couple of days I'm in the back yard with a small trowel and a plastic bag walking the grid. Today's haul was almost 500g. And yes, I did weigh it. Three dogs can produce a substantial amount of excrement.
Don't hate me for having such a fun life.
