VO2 max
April 13, 2007
It has a real ring to it: "VO2 max". As I understand it, it's a measure of the maximum volume of oxygen per unit of time that your body is able to use when you are exerting yourself stenuously. People like Lance Armstrong have dizzyingly high numbers, which is a large factor in their physical abilities. Apparently there are some guys in town that own the equipment for measuring VO2 max, as well as a variety of other physiological values. Cool! ... Hey Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
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16 kmApril 8, 2007
On Friday, I joined our Running Room group as we embarked on our attempt of 16 km. It strikes me odd that our program was structured to have the long weekly run at 10 km for a month and a half, and then wham, increases to 12 km, 14 km, then 16 km, over just three weeks!
This week has been a struggle for me. After my 14 km last week, I felt some tightness developing in my left leg, about four inches above the ankle. The next day I should have run really slowly and let the group get away from me, but not only did I keep up, I felt energetic so I stayed to the front of the group. When I got done my run, that left leg felt very tight, almost to the point of feeling injured. I came home and put ice on it, elevated it, and tried to rest it as much as possible the next two days. I think that helped, but having a 16k run on Friday was rough. I simply couldn't keep up with the group. Rather than quit and go home, I decided the best thing was just to take it very slow and try to favor my right leg a bit to take some additional stress off of my left leg. I made it, and by the end, my left side felt fairly loosened up. Not to my suprise, my right side now feels a little strained from overcompensating!
So I'm not sure where to go from here. I should probably talk to my chiropractor about getting some ART (active release therapy) done on my calf muscles to work out some of the tightness and possible scar tissue, but that doesn't answer the question of how I should modify the training program so that I maximize the benefits while mitigating the risk of injuring myself.
Getting back into itMarch 5, 2007
It has been a couple of years since I've made working out a hobby, but I'm finally getting back into it. This week I'm starting back on the pushup train, hoping to reach my goal of 100 pushups by early 2008, which will involve a lot of core strengthening and back strengthening to keep my body in balance.
Last night I ran the Running Room's scheduled 9kms at the Waterloo Memorial Rec Complex indoor track. For the first time in a very long time I tried a bit of sprinting. John-eric and I ran the track in somewhere around 35 seconds, which is about 25 km/h, and would make for about a 57 second lap of a 400m track. I wish I had actually timed us using my watch so that I wasn't just making a number up... I'll try that next week. It felt fantastic to run like that. Although it was a sprint, my strides were very fluid. We were starting from a jog and running quite a ways, so it wasn't the banging motion of accelerating from stand still... it only took about 5 seconds to reach top speed and from there it was smooth, fast sailing! Just for fun I searched Google Video for "800m race" and found the
1996 Atlanta olympic men's 800m. Nice!
One of my "99 things" is to run 400m in 55 seconds... I should be able to accomplish that this year :)
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