Unfortunately, a couple of beers led to a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night. That led to me being unable to get back to sleep for what seemed like 2 hours. As a result, morning came early and I was still tired. Even after feeding the dog, brushing my teeth and checking the weather, I couldn’t drag myself out the door. I went back to bed, so I’ll have to run tonight.
My last couple of posts, along with a recent article published locally, entitled “Development of Optimum Stride Length” got me thinking about the ancillary training that I could do to improve my running. I always hear about runners who have imbalances, which lead to injuries. It makes me wonder what my deficiencies are and if I could improve if certain areas were more flexible or stronger. Could I run the same or better with less mileage but more ancillary work? Would I be less prone to injuries?
The article I mentioned above gave a list of exercises and drills designed to “reduce ground contact time.” Included in the list are things like crunches, bounding, power skips, barefoot running, etc. These things always sound great on paper, but I rarely find myself following through on them.
It’d be nice if there was a (cheap) way to figure all this stuff out. What works and what doesn’t work. And it’d be cool if there was a way to quantify these types of things. That way you could rank-order the various exercises in order of importance.
Quote of the day;
“Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.” – Ray Knight
3 comments:
Tell me about it. My list for this winter:
Abs/Core Exercises
Increased stretching
Leg drills/strides
Weights
Not much has made it into my routine. Unless you're a pro, there just isn't enough time.
Of course, in the summer one could "theoretically" do these exercises outside while enjoying the lovely weather and get a "twofer." Or, do them while you're fishing. I mostly jest.
I only get my stretches done because the routine is to do it while watching the news at night. If it was just the stretches I'd never get it done.
I've been doing a pretty good job of getting in some ab work lately. Hopefully now that the roads are clear I can keep the strides going.
The thing is, how do I know what are the right exercises, drills, stretching, etc. FOR ME? How can I make the best use of my time?
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