Jacket on & off

This morning was one of those days with a hot sun and a cold wind. This dependent on my exposure to the wind and my effort I varied between too hot and too cold and put my jacket on and off a fair few times. The run took me via Devil's Elbow to Oxstones and was just under 20km. This is my third week of long runs so next week will have to be a bit gentler. As usual (now!) I tried to keep my heart rate below 140bpm and so walked the key ascents and didn't rush the descents either. After all I still have the dodgy knees and a slightly troublesome ankle.

Fresh spring leaves at Whirlow

It is hard to say that there is a major problem with my ankle as I've only felt the odd niggle but it is annoying me. Every so often I feel the show digging in around the ligaments of the peroneus muscles, my foot feels stiff and I find it hard to know how to place my foot. The toes feel slightly odd and I'm not sure where the neutral position is. I've had this feeling previously after catching a rock in my instep but on that occasion the effect on my gait caused contralateral knee pain. That's not a sequence of events I wish to repeat.

Now, some hours later the ankle feels 'tired' but is fully mobile and nowhere does it feel tender.

Carry on Swimming

My resting heart rate was nearly back to normal this morning after being raised by around 20% for the first half of the week. I'm assuming that the strain came from the sequence of Saturday run, Monday swim, Tuesday run and Wednesday run and circuits. At least a clear day made a major impact on reseting it.

After finishing a little early at work I went for a swim with the goal being to do sets of two lengths. That worked fairly well although I took longish rests between them. After 10 or so sets I put my mind to doing a set of 3 lengths and actually did a block of 5 or 6; it's not all that clear from my data. A key result though was managing the final 3 lengths in just under 3 minutes. My goal is to improve my technique and fitness to achieve 1km in a 30 minutes total so this is a step in the right direction.

Aiming for continuous lengths ... again

I've got a swimming lesson booked for next Sunday so thought I needed to keep up my poor technique! Also I'd read that the ability to do continuous lengths takes practice and a will to push on. So after work that was my plan. I did a dozen warm-up lengths at a mediocre pace and then set out to do joined-up-lengths.

I agreed with myself that I'd let form slip a bit to focus on not taking a break. Naturally I didn't aim for 1000m non-stop, I started with 2 lengths, that's 66m. I paused my timer whilst resting between pairs to get an idea of my pace. Or that was the theory, indeed I did pause the timer but hadn't realised that a pause didn't make a length mark as well. So really I've little idea of how many I did, I'd say at least 10 of these. After that I did 3 sets of 3 lengths (a whole 100m!). The 3rd lengths were rather scrappy but the main thing is that they happened. Moreover I felt myself regulating breathing during the 3 lengths, sometimes more exhaling, sometimes less; almost as if I was adjusting to to the load. Perhaps with single lengths your body can't get a clear idea of what it needs to do?

Looking at HRV

By last Friday day my morning heart rate was raised by nearly 20%, presumably due to the sequence of long run; another run, circuits and a late night (with too much wine). Saturday's run felt tougher than I'd hoped so this morning I was surprised that my waking heart rate had dropped back halfway.

Midmorning I found time to chill for a few minutes and popped on the monitoring strap. I was pleased to see my heart rate was further reduced at its normal rest rate and the standardised HRV was 73 which is pretty average for me.

I doubt that the extra few hours had much of a recovery effect or that breakfast had been beneficial to that extent. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be starting afresh on a week and will be strong enough to do a 10% mileage increase rather than the step-back I'd thought looked inevitable on Friday/Saturday.

Slow to Oxstones

I'm in the second week of a block and wanted to have a week's total over 30km which needed me to go over 15km this morning. That's not much but I felt tired when I set off, possibly due to a tiring week at work including one late night working dinner. On that basis I committed to a run/walk programme but not focussing on heart rate. Just steady progress with 1 minute walks every 6 minutes and walking the ascents.

The weather forecast was poor so it seemed ideal to stay in the valleys or most of the time, just making the high point of Oxytones for a few minutes. I set off through the the parks from Endcliffe up to Forge Dam.

From the dam Porter Clough was as tough as usual and I was glad that I'd already allowed myself to walk. Once I emerged on the moors the headwind was ever so strong and made the stretch  to Oxstones fairly unpleasant. From the trig point though the wind was on my back and most of the journey was downhill.

I was satisfied to be under  7min/km including several photo stops and that my ankle hadn't been  a problem. Every so often I was aware of it, but nothing that made me think I was over stressing it.

Niggles from the ankle

Today we went for a really short walk and at first there was the ankle irritation; I was wearing my hiking boots which have quite a different wear pattern to my running shoes. Gradually it faded but it did remind me that things aren't right. During some roller work this evening I even thought I could feel the peroneus longus tendon issue in the other leg! I suspect I was imagining that a little.

A little more online reading suggests that forefoot and midfoot strike is more likely to irritate the muscle than heel strike, which makes sense, so perhaps there's a bit of that to blame? I've also spotted a few hints linking peroneus longus tension to first ray metatarsalgia (i.e. pain on the ball of foot) so my observation of that is nothing unusual. Importantly, if that is present it's more likely that the muscle is tight and making things worse. I need to find some good literature to support these aspects!

Go east!

As a prelude to today's long run I went out for an easy 4km yesterday evening to see how my ankle/peroneus coped. My conclusion was that they were OK, and that I'd wear the Ultra 290 shoes as they have a low(ish) drop and that seems to suit me currently.

Today I planned to do 18km to achieve a week's total of 30km and to ring the changes I did the eastern part of the Sheffield Round Walk. This is a deceptively hard loop and has highlighted weaknesses in the past. In several of the woods the bluebells are in bloom and I thought the best area was Lady Spring Wood which has the perfect combination of dappled sunlight and ancient woodland.

Slightly tweaked in GIMP

Bluebells are a beautiful start to summer and whilst being a feast for the eyes are incredibly hard to capture by camera effectively.

Within the first few km I wondered how the run would develop as I had niggles from the right ankle but these settled quickly and I committed to carry on. Hopefully this won't prove to be a mistake. I kept the pace very gentle with a slowish target heart rate and walked on both ascents and descents. My goal was to be little faster than what is becoming my target 'race pace' of 7min/km. During the run I felt calf muscles, ITB tension, peroneus tension, patellar tendons, sore quad insertions but as the irritation moved around I hoped that each was trivial and would pass; which they did.

The roller and food at home made things feel better but now, early afternoon, I feel to be stiffening up  and I think more roller work and stretching is called for.