Monday, July 26, 2010

a little recovery

Today I woke up a little sore in the hamstrings. Also a tiny bit sore in the calves and adductors, but all the soreness is pretty minor, thankfully. I'm not surprised that I'm sore, as my coach says I'm not using my glutes enough and so my hamstrings are overworking. I know the best remedy for sore muscles is to gently work them to get the blood flow going; at least that always makes me feel better. Coach has limited me to 30 min exercise per day, but that would be enough to help.

So I went for an easy 30 minute walk. I intended to do a 6:45-7:00/k pace, but I'm so used to doing 6:30 on my easy days now that that's what came out. It felt sore for 10 min, and then good for 20 min. I'm happy I went.

I was to focus on my technique. There are a bunch of minor tweaks that need to be made in the next 6 wk or so of easy training while we wait for my iron levels to come up. Here's what the coach says: use glutes more, rotate right hip further back, change centre (his spelling :)) of gravity slightly to the front foot, bring hips through lower, and push hard off the toes. I tried to think about all those things while I was out. Surprisingly, it felt good. I think the one that helped the most was the suggestion to bring my hips through lower. When I thought about doing that, the other things started happening more. Of course, it's going to take a while to break some of my bad habits, but I'm excited about the possibility of being faster, even if it's just a little bit faster. I did wish that my coach could be here to watch me do it and tell me if it was right, but since there are no RW coaches in Utah I will have to make do. Besides, he's really good at biomechanics, and that kind of expertise is rare, so I'm excited to take advantage of it. After a few weeks of practicing I'll make another video and send it and see if I look better.

Workout summary: 4.66 km in 30:17 for 6:30/km with ave HR of 141.

No comments: