Training log - Week ending 7/31/11

This week was 47 miles of “real running” and 25 “miles” pool running plus 3000m of swimming -- training log is here. Biggest lesson learned this week was not directly running related.

[comment: I know that stuff like infected blisters are TMI for some people.  But I learned some good lessons from this, and so I'm sharing, so others know to take these symptoms very seriously.]

The story in brief is that I had a blister on my right big toe that got a bit inflamed after my track workout on Tuesday morning.  I didn’t worry about it too much – I get blisters all the time (I have baby skin, and you just have to look at me to chafe or blister me), and I just run through them.  If they rip, then I clean them really carefully with rubbing alcohol.

On Wednesday, I was feeling fatigued and dull, but I thought it was just recovery from Tuesday’s hard workout (which was pretty hard, being our first interval workout in 6 weeks).   My toe hurt some during the run, and more and more as the day went on.  The toe also started to swell, and the inside of my right foot got red.  I also noted that my right inner thigh had some very distinct sore spots – I decided these were probably muscle knots, and made a note to get back in for another sports massage. 

That evening, I noted a pale red streak on the top of my right foot, and the toe started to REALLY hurt.  And my calf was cramping a bit.  So I called my dad (a doctor) and asked if this was something I should call my primary care doctor about tomorrow, or wait a few days.  He told me (pretty strongly) to page her.  So, I did, VERY apologetically.

“Hey I've got a blister on my foot and I really don't think it's anything, but I promised my father I'd page you. If you want, you can call me tonight, but I really don't want to bug you so tomorrow is fine.”

She called me back 2 minutes later. After I described my foot (picture below), she prescribed an antibiotic, and ordered me to get to the 24 hour pharmacy ASAP (i.e. do NOT wait until morning). So I did, and started them.

Doesn't look all that bad, does it? (ignore the toenails, please) 
But note the red streak starting to run up the top of the right foot into the ankle.
(the stuff on the top of the left foot is just standard chafing
-- like I said, I chafe EVERYWHERE ALL the TIME)

By my appointment with her Thursday morning, the foot was MUCH better. Nearly pain free. In a nutshell, it was a cellulitis infection. Apparently, you can get infected blisters even if the skin doesn’t break (it didn’t here), especially if you have a) a circulatory disorder (as I do) and b) even a mild case of athletes foot (*cough*). The red streak on the top of my foot was the bacteria moving upstream, and the "muscle knots" in my thigh were inflamed lymph nodes.

So, I got off pretty darn easy, with 10 days of antibiotics, follow-up appointments, and instructions not to do any workout requiring a closed toe shoe until the blister had settled down. The last point meant that I got to skip out on a Friday morning workout in ridiculously hot and humid conditions in favor of the pool – definitely not the worst thing in the world. 

I do note, though that I would have been in big trouble had I waited until morning to bug my doctor – these infections apparently spread VERY rapidly, with potentially severe consequences. And, I might have been able to tempo on Friday if I had given her a call on Wednesday morning, instead of procrastinating until Wednesday night.

So, big lessons are: a) take any indication of infection in a blister very seriously, even if you are sure you’re just being a princess; b) even mild cases of athlete’s foot can end up causing big issues; c) pale red streaking on your skin traveling away from an infected cut or blister is a VERY bad sign, and merits either paging your doctor or going to the ER within the hour.

Duly noted. Moving on. Pre-toe infection and antibiotics, I was having a decent week, but the second half of the week has been a bit tougher.  I don't think it's any indication of a true performance loss; it's just that my body's still a bit off from either the infection or the antibiotics.  My 16 miler on Sunday ended up being a bit of a struggle, and I made myself finish it when I should have shut it down.  As my coach noted, I'm not doing myself any favors when I make myself complete a workout at all costs. 

I've got a few more days of the antibiotics to go -- I'm just going to try to keep my runs and workouts on the less intense side until I have everything out of my system.  I've made too much progress to get greedy and screw stuff up now.

Dailies


Monday: 1000m of swimming breathing drills and 40 minutes of easy pool-running for “4 miles,” and then some injury prevention work . Stretching and foam-rolling at night.

Tuesday: In the morning, 10 miles on the track. Prescribed workout was 2-3x1200, 800, 400 – half-distance recoveries between intervals; 400m recovery plus “hydrate fully” between sets (still pretty humid – temp of 74, dewpoint of 73). I ran 4:48, 3:03, 84; then 4:40, 2:55 (oops), 81; then 4:35, 2:58, 80. I was pretty happy with this one, with the exception of running the second 800m a bit too fast.

Followed with some injury prevention exercises and then a shakeout 20 minutes easy pool-running, for “2 miles”. Upper body strength-training and foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: 12 miles easy outside (8:41 pace) –shuffle warm-up (10:00 pace) before meeting up with Jessica for 11 easy (8:41 pace for overall run), followed by some running form drills. Followed with 1000m of swimming breathing drills. Pilates class in the afternoon, plus foam rolling

Thursday: In the morning, 50 minutes of easy pool-running for “5 miles” plus upper body strengthtraining. Yoga class at night.

Friday: In the morning, a tempo workout in the pool totaling “10 miles” – including a tempo workout of 22 minutes at tempo effort for “3 miles”, followed by 15 minutes for “2 miles” and 8 minutes for “1 mile” – 1 minute recovery between each (trying to replicate my coach’s “3, 2, 1” tempo workout that we do outside). Followed with 1000m of swimming breathing drills, half with pull buoy, half without. Stretching and foam-rolling at night.

Saturday: In the morning, 8.5 miles outside averaging 8:00 pace, followed with a shakeout 20 minutes of pool-running (“2 miles”). In the afternoon, light upper body strength training plus foam-rolling, injury prevention exercises, and stretching.

Sunday:   In the morning, a long run of 16.5 miles out and back, complete with 4 water breaks (and two Margarita shot bloks).  The average pace for the run was 8:06.  The first 7 miles were at 8:30 pace, followed by 5 miles at 7:52 pace and 3 miles at 7:25 pace.  Then I was totally done, and finished the run with a cool-down jog at 8:30 pace.  Not my greatest long run by far – as my coach noted, I should have just called it at 14, so as not to risk injury.  

I followed this up with some injury prevention exercises, and then 20 minutes very easy pool-running for “2 miles” to shake things out.

Paging Doctor Google and Coach Runnersworld

I play on the internet as much as the next person.  Maybe a bit more.

OK, a lot more.

I love message boards, fora, blogs, etc and have played on them since the days of Mosaic.  But I'm not alone here.  There's a wide community of runners who spend significant amounts of time on letsrun, runnersworld, etc, where we geek out all day about training, injury management, which race to run, ad nauseum.  And it is truly nauseous -- in the company of those with similar obsessions, we can ramble on about blisters and impromptu bathroom breaks with the openness traditionally reserved for the elderly and incontinent.

We interact on those forums because of the friendships we build, and I've made some darn good ones.  But there's another reason as well.

***

When I started running, I quickly figured out that I had no idea what I was doing.  So I reached out to the runnersworld forums for training advice and learned a lot.  Then I branched out and also started posting on letsrun -- having not broken 17 for a 5K, I'm arguably not fast enough to be posting there, but I have the requisite thick virtual skin honed from years of gothic-industrial music scene fora.

[trust me, letsrun is nowhere near the environment of rec.music.industrial, or the peak days of the alchemy-dc or gymrats livejournal communities].

It made sense for me to be reaching out for training advice - I had no coach.  I'd also discuss injuries both nascent and ongoing, and this made less sense, for I had plentiful access to both doctors and physical therapists.  And I noted that others with both coaches and physical therapists did the same.  So why reach out to anonymous strangers on the internet, when one has already retained professionals, with knowledge of our own characteristics and back stories, to advise on the very same issues?

***


Confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms your own pre-existing beliefs.  You search for information, then filter out the information that doesn't support your pre-existing view.

It's not a human flaw as much as a human characteristic, like greed.  It's universal.  We read newspaper articles, and our assessment of whether they are "fair and balanced" or "biased" hinges on our underlying perspective.    And the more certain you are that you LACK this trait, the more likely it is that you have it.

[I'm pretty certain that I engage in a great deal of confirmation bias -- I'm not sure whether this means that I actually do, or not.  I do know that my head hurts thinking about it]


And that's the key.  When you pay a professional for his or her assessment and advice, many times what you hear is NOT what you want to hear, or what makes sense to you.  I'm continually reminding myself that the whole reason I retained a coach was to be told the things I didn't want to hear (but needed to) so that I would do the things that I didn't want to do (but really should).  Even with that mantra as my mental background noise, I often find advice that I disagree with a bitter pill to swallow.  I always get it down, but it goes down better if I chase it with a fine whine.

In contrast, when you post a question to a forum or facebook or your blog, you'll (hopefully) receive multiple answers from which to shop. It's pretty easy to disregard certain comments, even when they comprise the majority of the response you get.  After all, those people probably don't totally understand the situation, or are lacking in basic knowledge.  It's the other comments, the ones that make sense (i.e. match what you were expecting or hoped to hear) that you hone in on.

If you start researching achilles tendonitis, and see the split between those advising total rest and those advising that you should run through it, the responses that will stick out to you are the ones that best match what you hoped to read.  But when you speak to a doctor or a coach, you get one opinion, based on personal observation, with no escape.

And so we keep going back to fora, to shop for the answers we want to hear.  It's the antithesis of the Rolling Stones...

you won't always get what you need, 
but if you try sometimes, you might find 
you get what you want.

Training log - Week ending 7/24/11

This week was 47.5 miles of “real running” and 10 “miles” pool running plus 3000m of swimming and 60 minutes on the arc-trainer-- training log is here.

A bit of a chaotic week. I traveled to the Tampa, Florida area for work, which threw off my normal running schedule and also meant that I intentionally cut back on my training load to compensate for the effect that air travel always has on me (I always end up with some tweaked muscle from lugging baggage through the airport, and also get pretty dehydrated).

I do note that Tampa was substantially cooler than Washington DC, which amused me.

Then Friday was essentially a rest day due to my planned track mile race on Saturday morning. Of course, the track meet was cancelled due to our horrible weather, and so I ended up doing back to back runs on Saturday and Sunday – with a conversational medium run on Saturday, and a progression long run on Sunday. Both runs were pretty strong, despite the bad weather conditions. I'm not running fast, but I'm actually running VERY fast for me in these weather conditions, meaning that I’m feeling pretty darn good about my fitness. I just need to remain disciplined about a) not getting greedy and doing too much and b) making sure to take adequate rest and recovery.

The one hiccup has been my darn asthma inhaler. They supposedly have 200 puffs in each, and I take 2 puffs twice a week (before track workouts and hills – the long steady build-up of long runs usually means that I don’t have a problem, unless the pollen’s bad). So, an inhaler should last 50 weeks, right? So why do I only get about 8 weeks use out of each one before they die on me (as my current one did before Tuesday’s hill workout, which was a most unpleasant surprise).

Well, did some Googling, and apparently you’re supposed to rinse the things once a week to prevent the inhaler from getting clogged. Oops. Well, that would explain it, then.

Dailies

Monday: 2000m of swimming breathing drills, followed by 20 minutes of easy pool-running for “2 miles,” and then some injury prevention work . Stretching and foam-rolling at night.

Tuesday: In the morning, 10.5 miles including 6 hill repeats – nonstop circuit of up a hill for about 2 minutes, a 90 second easy jog, a stride, and then some more easy jogging to the bottom (whole circuit takes ~5 minutes). Averaged 7:21 pace for the full 6 repeat circuit (just over 4 miles); we did take a quick break after rep 3 to hydrate (I also had to tie my shoe).

This was a tough one in bad conditions (temp 77, dewpoint 70, but thankfully overcast), made slightly more problematic by the fact that my inhaler decided to die that morning, meaning a) no pre-workout puffs, b) tough workout, and c) lovely post-workout cough (“track hack”). I toughed it out, though, hitting my max HR in the process (201 – haven’t seen that # in a while).
Followed with some injury prevention exercises and then a shakeout 20 minutes easy pool-running, for “2 miles”. Travel to Tampa, FL at night.

Wednesday: 60 minutes at easy effort on arc-trainer (set at a resistance that felt equal to pool-running), followed by upper body strength-training and foam rolling.

Thursday: In the morning, an easy run outside. We’ll call this one 10 miles at 8:35 pace since that’s what it felt like (I do know it was 10 miles, just don’t know the pace). My Garmin battery was very low (I think it got turned on accidentally in my backpack), so I ended up mapping out a route quickly and running watchless for the most part. I used my precious 6 minutes of battery life to take one split towards the end – that ended up showing 8:07 pace, but I don’t think that was my pace throughout (I usually start my easy runs in the low 9s and end in the low 8s). Ran 3 miles, then did strides and drills, before finishing the rest of the run. Followed up with injury prevention exercises.

In the afternoon, dragged luggage through airports back to DC. Pilates class plus foam-rolling at night.

Friday: In the morning, 1000m of swimming breathing drills, all with pull buoy, followed by stretching, injury prevention exercises, and foam-rolling.

Saturday: In the morning, 12 miles outside averaging 8:16 pace. Conditions were bad (80 degrees, DP of 70), but I took several breaks and stuck to a shaded trail, and was fine (inadvertently dropping down to 7:15 pace for the last two downhill miles). Followed with a shakeout 25 minutes of pool-running (“2.5 miles”). In the afternoon, light upper body strength training plus foam-rolling, injury prevention exercises, and stretching.

Sunday: In the morning, a long run outside in pretty bad conditions (dewpoint of 75, starting temp was 80, ending was 85). I ran 14.5 miles out and back, complete with 3 water breaks (and two Margarita shot bloks). The average pace for the run was 8:05, with the uphill out averaging 8:37 pace, and the downhill back averaging 7:31 pace (I dialed down the pace on the way back, finishing the last mile at 6:58 pace, followed by a final kick of .2 miles at 6:05 pace).

I followed this up with some injury prevention exercises, and then 35 minutes easy pool-running for “3.5 miles” (meant to do 25 minutes, but ended up in a conversation). I’m going to skip yoga tonight since I overdid the pool-running, and just foam-roll instead.

Everybody pool-runs

Even Usain Bolt.

Training log - Week ending 7/17/11

This week was 48 miles of “real running” and 19 “miles” pool running plus 3500m of swimming -- training log is here.

Lesson of the week was learned on Tuesday. Once again, heat/humidity is not my friend – it affects me more than others due to my circulatory issues – I slow more in the summer, and speed up more come winter. Tuesday’s hill workout emphasized once again that the people I train with when it’s normal are NOT the people I should try to hang with when it’s oppressive (trying to keep up with my normal group on Tuesday earned me a dizzy spell). Not a huge issue – just gives me more to look forward to come late fall and winter, as the converse is that I get more of a fitness boost than others when it does cool.

Things cooled off after Tuesday, and the rest of my runs went better. I had a decent tempo run on Friday, marred only by my inability to NOT run up on my teammates’ heels – clearly my track manners still need some work (during the tempo it occurred to me that if a horse ran up on me the way I ran up on my teammates, I’d be administering a stern lesson. I’m pretty grateful my teammates don’t have access to riding crops).

Sunday’s long run also went pretty well, making for a positive end to the week. I was particularly excited to go longer than 14 miles for the first time since late November 2010. I kept the run pretty conservative, and was excited by how much I had in the tank at the end – I could have gone another 2 miles without too much digging. Positive sign that my endurance may be stronger than I think, though I want to get another 16+ miler in, this time with a stronger pace, before my half.

Next week will be a bit of a cutback, as I travel to Tampa just in time for the heat wave to grip the east coast.  Due to the horrid weather forecast through next weekend, I'm leaning pretty hard in favor of doing another mile race next weekend -- I want to take another shot at the mile anyway, and what better time than when it's going to be too hot and humid for a decent tempo run anyway.

Dailies

Monday: 40 minutes of easy pool-running for “4 miles” followed by 1000m of swimming breathing drills. Got ART done on my hips in the afternoon, plus stretching, injury prevention work and foam rolling.

Tuesday: In the morning, 10 miles including 6 hill repeats – nonstop circuit of up a hill for about 2 minutes, a 90 second easy jog, a stride, and then some more easy jogging to the bottom (whole circuit takes ~5 minutes). Averaged 7:17 pace for the full 6 repeat circuit (just over 4 miles), but did have to take a 2 minute break after rep 4, due to a dizzy spell (heat and humidity were pretty bad – dewpoint over 70 and temp of 76). Damn Raynauds/heat tolerance.

Followed with some injury prevention exercises and then a shakeout 20 minutes easy pool-running, for “2 miles”. Strength-training plus foam-rolling at night.

Wednesday: 11 miles, most easy but with some aerobic near the end (1 mile jog, some drills, then 10 mile run) averaging 8:13 pace, plus strides and the rest of the drills after. Followed by 1000m swimming breathing drills. “Gentle Pilates” class plus foamrolling at night.

Thursday: In the morning, 60 minutes of easy pool-running for “6 miles”, followed by drills, injury prevention exercises and upper body strength training. Foam-rolling and stretching at night.

Friday: In the morning, 10.5 miles on the track including a tempo workout of 3 miles, 2 miles, 1 mile (quartermile jog between each). Despite feeling a bit off at the start (felt like allergies – drowsy, sinus pain, watery eyes, WTF?) the workout went decently. I ended up running 20:02 (6:44 pace - 6:54/6:41/6:27), then 13:08 (6:34 pace - 6:39/6:29), then 6:17. Also did some drills, followed with “2 miles” of easy pool-running (20 minutes). An easy pilates session (working on alignment) in the evening.

Saturday: In the morning, 1500m of swimming breathing drills (almost all with pull buoy) and then 30 minutes easy pool-running for "3 miles." In the afternoon, upper body strength training plus stretching, injury prevention exercises, and foam-rolling.

Sunday: In the morning, a long run outside. This was my first 16 mile run (well, ended up being 16.5), and so I kept it on the easy side so as to ensure I could finish the run strong. Started at about 9:00 pace for the first 3 miles, then picked up slightly to average 8:05 pace for the rest of the run. After passing the 14 mile mark (where running buddies Will and Brandon peeled off), I opened up slightly, doing 7:50 for the uphill climb, then 7:10 for the downhill, before kicking the final .2 at 6:10 pace.

I followed this up with some drills and injury prevention exercises, and then 20 minutes easy pool-running for “2 miles”. Restorative yoga class at night, plus foam-rolling.

Pool-running for recovery

When I was starting to return to running, I frequently did "mixed runs" -- start running on land, then swap into a bathing suit and finish out the miles by pool-running.  And even after I started phasing track workouts back in, I would do my warm-up and workout outside, but the cool-down in the pool (conveniently adjacent to the track).

The purpose behind this practice was simply to be careful with the stress I placed on my healing foot, by transitioning gradually from pool to land.  But along the way I noted a key side benefit.

I was NEVER sore after a track workout if I followed it with a pool run.  Never.

Ditto for races.  And also for upper body strength-training.  I could do eccentric weight work to failure, and yet the DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) would be minimal or non-existent.  Again, IF I hopped in the pool right afterwards.

So, I've kept the pool-running as part of my routine even as I've returned to full mileage.  Essentially, I make sure to do 20 minutes of easy pool-running after any hard workout or race -- ideally as soon as possible.  And the benefits persist. 

Here's why I think it works.

a) Cold water.  No, it's not as cold as the ideal temperature for an ice bath (supposedly between 54-60 degrees), but apparently it's still cold enough to do the job.

b) Pressure.  It's well known that immersion in water results in significant hydrostatic pressure against the body, resulting in a lowered heart rate due to the higher stroke volume that results from the pressure.  In plainspeak: more pressure against your circulatory system means that more blood flows with each beat of the heart, so your heart has to beat less often to move the same amount of fluid.  This, BTW, is the same theory underlying the use of compression gear during performance.

Now, while the jury's out on the benefits of compression gear while racing, there's a bit more consensus on the benefit of compression for recovery.  Additionally, compression is one of the four components of the "RICE" treatment for recent injury (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation). 

So, connecting the dots, it makes sense to me that the pressure exerted on the body when immersed in water would have a similar recovery effect to that produced by compression gear.

c) Movement.  In my humble non-educated opinion, this is what truly separates pool-running from an ice bath.  When taking an ice bath, you're most likely seated in your bathtub, meaning your hip flexors (and to a lesser extent, your quads) are in a shortened position.  If you have tight hip flexors, as I do, this is an issue.  By taking an ice bath while seated, I chill those muscles while they are shortened.  In doing so, I undo some of the good work I've put into lengthening those babies and correcting my lordosis/anterior pelvic tilt.   But when pool-running, I'm working my legs through their full range of motion, keeping those hip flexors lengthened (and also encouraging blood flow throughout my legs in the process). Much better, I think.

d) More appealing.  This one can't be discounted.  It's much easier to get into a pool for 20 minutes post race than to make up an ice bath.  And the best recovery techniques are the ones you actually use.



So...how do you do it?  Well, it's pretty easy.  Drive over to the pool after your race or workout, don your bathing suit (showering off the sweat and grime, please), and then hop in.  

Once in, I use my normal pool-running form, alternating between cycling and bounding.  The key differences are 1) that I really focus on full range of motion, rather than firing muscles, and 2) that I make sure to keep the effort very easy (I recommend using a belt even if you usually don't).  The key thing to remember is that this is not a workout, but recovery.

Training log - Week ending 7/10/11

This week was 35 miles of “real running” and 17 “miles” pool running plus 1500m of swimming -- training log is here.

This ended up being a cutback week, due to a 5K race on Monday, followed by a brief bout with a summer cold that resulted in some time off.

The Monday 5K was hot and humid and a bit hilly (report). I actually was very happy with 9/10th of the race, but then heat exhaustion caught up with me at the very end and I tied up pretty badly (and of course, the race finish video published on the website included me struggling across the finish line – dignity? What’s that?). I felt rundown enough afterwards that I skipped any jogging cooldown, and just did some very easy pool-running.

And then I started feeling a bit sick mid-morning Tuesday (headache, slight fever, nausea, chills). In an attempt to exercise a bit of restraint, I took Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning off, and also maxed out the fluids, the rest, and the vitamin C/Echinacea/Zinc. Luckily, the cold was shortlived; an easy run on Thursday indicated that it was pretty much out of my system, so I went ahead with the Friday tempo and the Sunday long run. Felt a bit off for both (moreso for the tempo), but I just ran within my capabilities for that day, and the workouts were fine.

Dailies

Monday: ~2 mile easy jog warm-up and then 5K race (report) in heat, humidity, and hills (temp 77, dew point 70) – 20:44. Was pretty bushed afterwards, so just did 30 minutes very easy pool-running as a cool-down/icebath substitute – “3 miles”.

Tuesday: In the morning, 60 minutes of easy pool-running for “6 miles.” Foam-rolling and stretching at night.

Wednesday: Took the morning off. Light strengthtraining plus foamrolling at night.

Thursday: In the morning, 7 easy miles outside (8:29 pace) followed by drills, strides, and injury prevention exercises. Foam-rolling and stretching at night.

Friday: In the morning, 9 miles on the track in lousy weather (76, dewpoint 73, sunshine). Workout was 2x2miles plus 1 mile (quartermile jog between each). Ended up running 13:16 (6:39/6:37), 13:24 (6:44/6:40), and then a mile in 6:32. Also did a lot of drills, followed with “2.5 miles” of easy pool-running (25 minutes). An easy pilates session (working on alignment) in the evening.

Saturday: In the morning, 1500m of swimming breathing drills (almost all with pull buoy) and then 30 minutes easy pool-running for "3 miles."  In the afternoon, upper body strength training plus stretching, injury prevention exercises, and foam-rolling.

Sunday: In the morning,  a long progression run outside – overall pace was 7:54 for 14 miles, with 2 water stops.   I averaged 8:26 for the 7 miles out, and 7:24 for the 7 miles back (way back was ~7:30 for first 5.5 miles, then split 3:41, 3:36, 3:28 for the three half-mile splits on the Capital Crescent, and then 6:17 pace for the final quartermile kick).   Followed with strides, drills, and injury prevention exercises, and then 25 minutes easy pool-running for “2.5 miles”.   Restorative yoga class at night, plus foam-rolling.

Sequel: Yet another 7 WTF/Duh!/Huh? Moments/Observations About Pool Running.

(previous in the series: 7 WTF/Duh!Huh? Moments/Observations About Pool-running and  7 More WTF/Duh!/Huh? Moments/Observations About Pool-running)

1. Swimmers are to pool-runners as bikers are to land-runners.
2. There are few things as annoying to the dedicated pool-runner as a cross-current.
3. The pool-running belt that won't stay tight is one of the few things more annoying than a cross-current.
4. You will make some very good friends pool-running.  And you'll be shocked when you finally meet them on land, and realize that you are in fact very different heights.
5. Key reason that pool-running is better than land-running -- nobody ever suggests that you carry your blackberry or cellphone with you while pool-running.
6. If someone hits on you while you're pool-running, it's frustratingly hard to get away.  You really are trapped.
7. Yes, it is possible to chafe while pool-running.  And bodyglide is much much less effective in the pool.
   

Training log - Week ending 7/03/11

This week was 41 miles of “real running” and 17 “miles” pool running plus 2000m of swimming -- training log is here. Not much to report here – still feeling very good, with everything feeling better each week. I’ve been working a lot on the minor stuff identified by my gait analysis last week, and it seems to work wonderfully – holding my pelvis correctly (I envision tying a belt around my hips and being pulled forward by that) appears to make a significant difference in the pace associated with a given effort. So yay.

No long run this week, as I race on Monday. Of course, it’s going to be hot and humid, and a hilly course, so I won’t be able to draw many conclusions from my time. But it will be a good opportunity to practice racing while holding relaxed form with proper hip position.

Dailies

Monday: 1000m of swimming breathing drills (all with pull buoy) plus 40 minutes easy pool-running for “4 miles”, followed by injury prevention exercises. Did ART on my hips in the afternoon, plus stretching and foam rolling.

Tuesday: In the morning, 11.5 miles, including 6 hill repeats – nonstop circuit of up a hill for about 2 minutes, a 90 second easy jog, a stride, and then some more easy jogging to the bottom (whole circuit takes ~5 minutes) We averaged 7:22 pace for the full 6 repeat circuit (just over 4 miles). . Followed with some injury prevention exercises and then a shakeout 20 minutes easy pool-running, for “2 miles”. Strength-training plus foam-rolling at night.

Wednesday: In the morning, 11.5 very easy miles outside (8:35 pace) plus some drills and strides post run. Followed by 1000m of swimming breathing drills (some with the pull buoy, some without). Massage at night.

Thursday: In the morning, "6.5 miles" of easy pool-running (65 minutes) followed by strength-training and injury prevention exercises. Foam-rolling and stretching at night.

Friday: In the morning, 9 miles on the track in very nice weather. Because I race on Monday, my tempo was cut back to 2 miles, quartermile jog, 1 mile. Ended up running the 2 miles in 13:17 (6:41/6:36), followed by a mile in 6:19. Coach told me it was too fast, but it felt almost effortless (and my HR was much lower than normal) – I was really trying to slow down and just focus on staying relaxed, and each split was a bit of a surprise. Part of it may be attributable to the dry air, and also to the work that I’ve been doing on my posture, plus the fact that I was wearing my racing flats instead of my trainers (my normal tempo shoe).

Followed with “3 miles” of easy pool-running (30 minutes). An easy pilates session (working on alignment) in the evening.

Saturday: In the morning, an easy run of 9.5 miles (8:08 pace), followed by drills and strides, and then “1.5 miles” of easy pool-running (15 minutes). Did some injury prevention and stretching in the afternoon.

Sunday: Off. Just foamrolling, injury prevention exercises, and stretching.