80º and cloudy, felt warmer. South wind. Yesterday biked up the mountain in just under 22 min, so did something. The 600m I ran 2 days ago made me think I could run a decent 800m, but todays workout makes me think otherwise. It was a struggle. Makes me think I'm rapidly losing fitness.
Hoka trainers on
stretches, drills, 100m, bands
300m, 300m, 100m, 100m w/ 3min rest - 48.06, 49.56, 15.62, 13.72
Maybe I didn't warmup enough and maybe I ate too much yesterday but the first one was really clunky and tiring. My foot and knee hurt. The second one felt better, pain went away, but the head wind caught me in the last 100m and I ran slow. It was unusually tiring. I opted out of the 3rd 300 and ran 2x100m with 3min rest.
The problem is that I've been sprint training essentially for years without much of a break. After I won the Silver in the 800m at Nationals last year and anchored on my club 4x400m relay on Aug 1st, I took just ONE WEEK off from running, then started back to the track once per week on Aug 8. That is part of my problem right now. The previous year in '21, I raced through mid Aug and took a month off because of that proximal ham soreness that eventually resulted in the injury in my second indoor meet in Dec. '21. I was forced to take some time off in spring '22 but even then, I was still running hills and biking. So, need to wrap this season up.
At this point, I don't think I can improve on my 57.59 400m time, so thinking about maybe just running the 100m and 200m in Canada. The 4x800m I'm not going to worry about since I don't yet have a commitment.
Anyway, maybe will do better next time. Some say, if you take a lot of time off you NEVER get it back. Some say that's untrue. But I do know how hard it is to start over. It's really really tough, and painful. But we do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
140.1 lbs after workout.
So you didn’t run track for almost 30 years and have done ok. That says to me you can take extended time off and get it back, if you are accepting and patient.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the notion you can’t get it back is anecdotal- there maybe real cases but not based on physiology but psychology- not willing to accept the time it takes to regain fitness or found other interests or just lost interest.
ReplyDeleteAgeing : Once passing peak sporting age we all decline naturally, particularly past the age of 70. So any time off in later life is a struggle on an already declining path. 400m is noted as one of the most affected disciplines for ageing. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.01100/full.
ReplyDeleteDetraining : happens relatively rapidly and is most pronounced with aerobic conditioning. https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/how-much-down-time-is-too-much-the-concept-of-detr/
Speed + strength do not decline so rapidly. 400m is a hybrid of speed + aerobic. However the slower you are (eg 60 secs race time compared to say 45 secs) the more time you spend at aerobic levels. My hesitation with detraining articles is they tend to measure against relatively large reductions in training volume rather than than say the 25% reduction of doing 3x300 instead of 4x300. Elite level athletes in any age group will notice small drops in training and race results more readily anyway.
Loss of motivation as noted above is a very good point. As is accumulated niggle injuries that tend to reduice training volume/intensity.