Just A Little Kid With A Big Dream

SuspectZero

The title is a bit misleading, I'm 30 now so I'm a big kid with a little dream but I'm trying to recapture the attitude of a much younger and purer me, as you get older, circumstances and passions change but some things never quite fade away, they linger in the back of your head poking you, questioning you and saying well.. what are you gonna do about it. The overwelming one hiding in the back of my mind has always been running. When I was 11, it was dreams of wearing Irish singlets and having a career in athletics however grandiose those dreams were.

I love running but I also love a good piss up and that has been my conundrum since I was 14 and neither passion has faded since my mid teens. I can never stay away from either for too long before I get drawn back to the other. It's probably a first world problem but one of my biggest regrets is not sticking in athletics when I was younger and seen how good I could be. I had a lot of talent but was always sidetracked by the party lifestyle, I tried to come back again when I was 22 and thought I was a lot wiser and smarter about managing my social life with my running but I was only fooling myself as I tossed and turned between periods of training and periods of partying and inconsistency is the deathnail of progression. I also came back to running because it was something I remembered hugely enjoying and I thought it would be a good release coming from a history of drug abuse and an ever developing anxiety problem. And it was at first but the expectations grow and grow and everyone in your running life starts constantly banging on about talent and start heaping pressure on you to be making huge progress and even the best days are never good enough because I'm supposed to be so much better. I know it seems small, hardly Mo Farah levels of expectations lol but running was supposed to be my escape from stress, not adding to it so it was always easier to go back to the booze sessions which were good craic and expectation free. I haven't run for a year but I'm feeling that huge draw towards it again lately.

So here I am again, a little older again and hoping I'm that much wiser again lol. The reason for the title is motivation every time I log in because it's that 11 year old that is still poking around in the back of my head saying wake up, he's still hanging around 20 years later for some reason when a lot of other stuff has faded away completely. Apoligies for the sentimental intro, its a good reminder for me to have when motivation might get lower.

My goal for this log is simple, build an athlete, not just a runner. Even when I was running Pb's in he last few years, I never felt fit, I always felt slow and weak so thats something that is very high on my priority list:

Rebuild speed
Rebuild flexibility
Explosiveness
Endurance

A simple formula but one I hope will pay big dividends, feeling fit and strong like I did back in my teens is the priority, I'd rank that feeling higher than any pb I've ever ran. I'm a bit older now so it might be tough but I've also got much more knowledge.

waffle out of the way, I'm seriously unfit right now, maybe the least fit I've ever been, this is my first week back running

Monday: Off
Tuesday: 4 Miles(4 mins run, 1 min walk)
Wednesday: 3 miles(4 mins run, 1 min walk)
Thursday: Off
Friday: 4 Miles Run
Saturday: 3 Miles Run
Sunday: Off

Week was tough, alot of muscle pain and stiffness from day one so these would tuck nicely into the deathmarch category.

Lazare

This looks an interesting one. Best of luck, and fair play for such honesty.

What sort of medium/long term goals do you have in terms of race distances and times?

SuspectZero

Lazare wrote: »

This looks an interesting one. Best of luck, and fair play for such honesty.

What sort of medium/long term goals do you have in terms of race distances and times?

Thanks, expectations are pretty low, this could last 2 weeks or two months, who knows. Race distances are going to be mainly focused on 5/10k and my medium term goal is just to get into relatively good shape for xc in september. Time goals are second priorty to me right now, I didnt think i was going to run again about 3 months ago so any progress is good progress, I haven't even thought about times yet tbh.

i probably should add just to give you a current idea of my fitness, It would probably be a flat out effort to run around 50 minutes for 10k right now.

SuspectZero

Week 2

Mon: 5 Miles Run
Tue: Off
Wed: 4 Miles Run
Thu: 4 Miles w/6x60m sprints
Fri: Off
Sat: 5 Miles Run
Sun: Off

Another week of deathmarches, everything is tight and sore pretty much, I need a list to sum it up I think:

Right side IT band just above the knee( down to stride I'd say as I haven't had this niggle since 2013 when I was last this out of shape)
TFL on both sides very tight when running
spasming glutes on both sides
Very tight calves
Right side scapula nerve pain
A stone got in my shoe and ripped a nice chunk of skin off my sole

A nice reminder on the first page of this log as to why I should never take a long break from running again even though I was expecting it to bad anyway, just not this uncomfortable and that I need to run on grass more often. Plan is to hopefully introduce some strength and flexibility work this week. Not the best of starts but I know it will get better over the next few weeks.

OOnegative

Any improvement with the calves?

SuspectZero

OOnegative wrote: »

Any improvement with the calves?

None whatsoever, 10 minutes into every run, they feel like they are going to explode, barefoot on grass is the only remedy I can find. I must be the only person in the world who is faster barefoot and on grass than wearing vaporfly on the road:pac:, not even exaggerating seriously. I was going to get the compartment syndrome test done a couple of months back but thought why even bother, I'm probably never going to run again, plus the cost of the whole thing is huge and I'm trying to go back to college this september hopefully if they let me so my days of big spending are well behind me until I find out whats going on there. The calves are pure misery though, not going to lie, when I run barefoot on grass.. I'm buzzing but step onto the road and its a never ending slog where I feel I'm sinking every stride.

OOnegative

SuspectZero wrote: »

None whatsoever, 10 minutes into every run, they feel like they are going to explode, barefoot on grass is the only remedy I can find. I must be the only person in the world who is faster barefoot and on grass than wearing vaporfly on the road:pac:, not even exaggerating seriously. I was going to get the compartment syndrome test done a couple of months back but thought why even bother, I'm probably never going to run again, plus the cost of the whole thing is huge and I'm trying to go back to college this september hopefully if they let me so my days of big spending are well behind me until I find out whats going on there. The calves are pure misery though, not going to lie, when I run barefoot on grass.. I'm buzzing but step onto the road and its a never ending slog where I feel I'm sinking every stride.

Jeez that’s absolutely poxy, stick to the grass so for as much as you can.

SuspectZero

Week 3:

Monday 2nd March- 5 Miles On Grass

Tuesday 3rd March- 5 Miles Inc. Blown Diagonal Workout On Grass

Plan for today was to have a good speed workout on the soccer pitch, done my warmup and no issue until I was running my fourth diagonal across the pitch and just when I was stopping up, I could feel both sides of my glutes starting to squeeze and contract until I couldn't lift my legs to walk. Never had glute cramps before but that's probably the best way to describe the feeling. waddled over to the stand and it took about ten minutes to free up so I had to scrap the session and finished up with a cooldown once everything was back in order.

Wednesday 4th March- 5 Miles On Grass

Thursday 5th March- 5 Miles Inc. 20 Minutes Of Diagonals w/ Very Slow walk recoveries

Repeat of Tueday's planned session, Went much better this time around despite the freezing rain giving me a battering. Legs felt zippy enough and felt like I'd blown off some rust too after as they felt super loose on the cooldown. My body may be struggling with the rigors of returning to running as a whole but one thing hasn't changed, my legs still love speedwork.

Friday 6th March- 5 Miles On Grass

Much better on the whole this week, getting out the door has felt a lot easier, apart from the glutes, niggles and tightness is much improved despite increasing mileage and frequency so that's a win-win and something to be positive about.

Murph_D

Good stuff, apart from the alarming glute cramps. (No experience of this kind of thing myself in training, sounds like a warning though).

Are you overdoing it already? 14 miles week 1, 25 in five days already only two weeks later. What’s the rush?

Would you be better off just building up a bit of mileage on a sustainable level before you introduce the sessions?

SuspectZero

Murph_D wrote: »

Good stuff, apart from the alarming glute cramps. (No experience of this kind of thing myself in training, sounds like a warning though).

Are you overdoing it already? 14 miles week 1, 25 in five days already only two weeks later. What’s the rush?

Would you be better off just building up a bit of mileage on a sustainable level before you introduce the sessions?

Could be possibly jumping too quick, the rush is more down to wanting to run more than anything thought out, I really haven't any plan or anything, just running when I feel like it and apart from the ever-present calf issues which aren't an overuse injury, they are just there whether I rest for two weeks or a year, I've never really had an overuse injury so was always able to increase mileage quickly in the past so that's why I've never been too concerned going from 0-40 or 50 miles a week in a short period of time but you're right, This is one of those rare times where my motivation is super high but my body is close to the weakest its ever been so it's something I'll have to keep better tabs on.

On workouts, the sessions aren't workouts in the general definition, they are very moderate and is more akin to a stride workout than barn burning intervals. Diagonals are pretty much 8-10 seconds at 90% and 30-60 seconds recovery(very much an aerobic workout). I think doing them on grass in track spikes was an issue though(especially with how much the pitch is dug up and uneven right now and in combo with me doing more sitting than ever before for the last while so they were probably overworked trying to keep me stable and running fast at the same time on a terrible surface. I had no pain, They locked up so not fearing injury, if it was my hamstrings, I'd be way more concerned as hamstring tears could be an issue when running fast. That and short sprint sessions don't really affect my ability to run the mileage, if anything, I feel lighter, looser and faster in the days following them. Basically the same reason you see people doing strides the day before a race or running 200's as a race week work out. They jump start your central nervous system and have a very small recovery cost.

SuspectZero

Slight cutback this week, partly due to laziness and that I probably needed to put the brakes on a bit too.

Monday 9th March- 4 miles EZ On Grass

Tuesday 10th March- 4 Miles EZ On Grass

Wednesday 11th March- Off

Thursday 12th March-4 Miles EZ On Road(9:17 Pace)

Strapped on Garmin for this out of curiousity, felt terrible about a mile in, calves swelling and straining badly(veins popping out of my legs and rock solid to touch), absolute brain melting slog, I cant seem to tolerate the road even slightly.

Friday 13th March- 3 Miles EZ On Road

More of the same, planned to do 4 but called it a night after 3 as it just felt like punishment, I'd have taken waterboarding at that stage.

Saturday 14th March- 5 Miles On Grass(8:26 Pace)

IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! Onto the Grass barefoot, not even a whisper from the calves, running way too fast for my current pace was a bigger issue but it felt like having gears again so couldn't hold back today, whereas the two previous days felt like hanging on at the much slower pace


I'm seriously at a loss right now, while training on grass is fine, I cant just pretend the road doesn't exist, races happen there. This has honestly driven me down the rabbit hole as all common knowledge says the last place you should put someone with calf issues is barefoot or in spikes on grass because it's supposed to destroy your calves, but I have no calf issues when I do exactly those things, heck.. I'm one of the only people I know who runs 10k XC races in mid distance spikes, put me on the road in a pair of runners and my calves are trashed. General digging through garmin says i average about 163 for my cadence on runs between 8 and 9;30 pace on the roads while I'm at close to 170 on grass barefoot at the same pace range which is what you would expect. This could be desperation talking but I'm curious if maybe I'm overstriding on the road. And yes, i realise I just referenced every single running fad of the last decade but i'm willing to try anything at this stage.

ReeReeG

What are you doing to try help the calves otherwise? I'm no expert at all at all, but I had awful trouble with my calves last year and into this year, and through some short daily exercises from my physio, and a couple of S&C classes a week, I seem to have come out the other side. And mine were so rock hard that the skin wasn't even moving along them when the physio tried to work on them originally

SuspectZero

ReeReeG wrote: »

What are you doing to try help the calves otherwise? I'm no expert at all at all, but I had awful trouble with my calves last year and into this year, and through some short daily exercises from my physio, and a couple of S&C classes a week, I seem to have come out the other side. And mine were so rock hard that the skin wasn't even moving along them when the physio tried to work on them originally

Hey, I've tried sports massages, cross friction massages, posture changes, calf raises, dynamic and static stretching(holding some stretches for 3-4 minutes), I even bought a stupidly expensive vibrating foam roller which to be fair, works wonders on most of my other tightness but not the calves. As I get fitter, it usually gets a little milder but it's still pure torture, a long run is dread inducing for me for instance and I've had to cut any long run down to loops so I can bail if I need to.

what kind of S&C and stretching did you do? I've been thinking about trying to squat with weight to see if it helps but I dont know

ReeReeG

I hear you on the pain, go read my Tullamore HM report

Well, the physio told me my main issue was not running from the hips enough and weak glutes (standard) so that's what I did first, and with no running as my calves were just an awful state. So resistance band and glute bridges, lunges and quad stretches as they were fairly tight at the same time, squats with resistance bands and a low weight, single leg squats (awful), side planks with leg raises. In the S&C classes then, it's a mix of weighted stuff and a lot of those exercises BUT I started getting pain again in my calves so got additional exercises and these have been great for me personally.
Seated weighted calf raises - fairly heavy (for me) weight, knee/quad to wall stretch on each foot. Only about 5 mins in the evening. I also started doing glute activation exercises with a resistance band before most runs, only takes 5 mins.
Obviously everyone is different and I am not at all qualified to give advice but who knows, might help

SuspectZero

That definetly helps, more avenues to explore at the very least, thanks a mil

SuspectZero

Week 5:

Monday 16th March- 5 Miles Grass(8:38)

Probably the first day I've felt good since I started back again, where the distance didn't feel like a challenge in itself so my conditioning is obviously starting to come on fairly quickly. Still a very long way and a lot of work to go though.

Wednesday 18th March- 5 Miles Grass(untimed)

Pretty much the same as yesterday, slight sciatic nerve pain later in the day

Thursday 19th March- 5 Miles Inc 10x100m(14.high avg) w/~90s Rec On Grass

Headed to the soccer pitch for this, 2 mile warm-up, half of it with a fairly painful stomach cramp as I was still full to the brim from dinner. Reps were done from pretty much static start as there isn't enough room to roll into them with the advertising hoarding. My speed seems pretty decent but I'm about as explosive as a lame lamb, it take me a while to get rumbling. Overall, pretty happy but a lot of improvement to be had here I feel, It doesn't feel like I'm getting all the force I could down into the ground.

Have two more runs planned for this week, going to start building a long run from now on seeing as I feel like my conditioning is getting to a point where I can handle one without it having a major effect on the rest of the week and less chance of injury too. Happy enough though, definetely moving in the right direction anyway

SuspectZero

Might as well bump this with some sort of update. Basically my running has been non-existent since this dropped off, i picked up a fairly bad grade 2 ankle sprain which took me off my feet for a few weeks, i was just getting back into running after that and i woke up with chest pains and collapsed about an hour later when i tried to get out of bed which ended up with me in the hospital. Got diagnosed with a spontaneous pnuemothorax(a random collapsed lung in other words) so that's another 6 weeks out atleast depending on how i recover. So basically, this comeback attempt has been a complete shambles to say the least:pac:

Hope everyone is well and happy running all!!