Following the jaunt's earlier this week, I've ended up with a mild strain to that calf muscle again. The term "dogged by injury" springs to mind, although cosmically speaking, it's pretty insignificant.
I'm just running too fast. Still. And with it, I've long burnt my chances of hitting my race target. Chances are, I won't even be able to make it round the 4k fun run, my secondary target. The rest of me is itching to move on up to week 2 but I just can't leave my left leg behind!
I couldn't run on Friday as I knew to do so would make things worse and this is very frustrating. I feel that I can't move on through my training plan until I can make it to the end of week 1 without pain. Week 1 will just have to continue until I manage 2 or 3 consecutive runs at a 1 minute run 90 second walk without the wheels coming off, and I manage to keep my pace down to around a 10 minute mile.
In the meantime, it's back to mixing it up with swimming, walking, cycling (if I ever blow those tyres up) and that whole RICE thing Steve Runner talked about in his early shows: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
Mr Stumble
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4 comments:
Andy,
Sorry if I was a bit harsh in my last message. Didn't mean to be. You'll get there.
The Garmin is a wonderful training tool, but it isn't without limitations.
1) It has a very low power GPS receiver with a smallish antenna. This means that it won't work all that well if there are tallish buildings (or canyon walls) around you. It also doesn't like dense forest areas (this isn't a big problem in central Arizona) and it really doesn't like it if you run through tunnels. I don't know what the exact cut off is, but if it loses a reliable signal for 30 seconds (approx) it will go into hunt mode and stop computing current postion, pace, etc. When the signal is restored, it seems to assume that you've run in a straight line between the last known point and the point it found you at and starts computing the pace again. Of course the pace it computes between the two known points is simply time/distance
2) Although it does a remarkably good job keeping track of your whereabouts, it doesn't have all that much computer power in it. Without boring you with all the math, this device is fairly simple. It derives your position based on information it recieves from several GPS satellites. By comparing the changes in your position over time, it figures out your pace (speed), distance and direction. In order to keep things stable, it has a number of filters on it that assumes you will continue to move along the same path at the same pace. This works really slick until you stop, or make a right angle turn. If you watch the display as you go around a tight corner you'll see that your displayed pace appears to drop and then dramatically up as the Garmin's internal filters try to figure out where you are going after the turn. Things will settle out after 10 seconds or so.
On average, over a mile, these pluses and minuses tend to average out and the machine is fairly accurate. However, you are trying to use it for very short intervals ... hence, it may be giving you screwy pace averages over the 1 minute intervals.
I know I sound like an endless tape loop, but, I'll suggest this one more time. Don't sweat the pace, use the Garmin for it's time intervals only. Slowly lentghen your running segments and shorten the walk cycles. Once you get out to 30 minutes non stop, you'll be ready to start worrying about everything else.
The fun thing is that you'll never fail to have something to work on. One of my favorite blogs is written by Mike in Tucson Arizona (100 miles south of my home). This guy has been training to run a sub 2:30 marathon in the PF Changs Rock 'n Roll Marathon in San Diego on Sunday. He is constantly working on something even though every thing he could do BEFORE he started training for this marathon was far better than anything I'll ever be able to accomplish. Even though I'll never reach his level of performance, I've used many of his running philosophies to improve my own running. Unbeknownst to Mike, he has done more for my running than any of the books, magazines, or web-sites I’ve read since I started running 4 years ago. More than anything, it was the realization that I would always be working on improving something that got me to slow down and start focusing on general conditioning. After I get through this conditioning phase I'll start working on improving something else.
You'll get through your early injuries and put them behind you. However, this isn't a pain free sport. You are after all, pounding the crap out of your body. Humans were designed to run, but most of use spend the years after 18 sitting on our butts. The trick is to minimize the injuries as you work on improving your performance as well as dramatically improving your overall health.
Best of luck,
Phil
Phil,
Thanks for your comments. I hadn't considered them harsh - I'm grateful for the support.
This Garmin is the first GPS device I've owned, but not the first I've had dealings with. I've specified and installed 3 GPS network time systems in business projects here in the UK. We like to back them up with terrestrial 60Hz time receivers too, just in case George W. decides to turn GPS off for the rest of the world!
Of course, the time systems don't move and they have sizable hunks of rack mount gear fizzing away behind them, so it's no suprise Mr Garmin's single soldered board will get confused over shorter distances.
I'm running streets here, it's mainly straight lines, low rise buildings and not a lot of trees. I think that the pace accuracy is not going to be too bad - I can see some collation with the slower bits where I run uphill for example.
While I'm running, I'm not paying any attention to the pace on the screen, just listening for the beeps to tell me to stop and start. There is just a bit of after-the-event recording and analysis, and to be honest, this is for 3 reasons:
1) I want to understand over a length of time (weeks/months) how accurate this thing really is
2) I want something mildly interesting to write about.
3) I want to see if it can provide any straws to grasp at to explain my calf muscle injury.
I do take your points for your previous and latest posts:
- keep pace down so I don't throw a rod again.
- Mr Garmin is not accurate over small distances, but when used in longer runs, averages and rounds things in a way which is not far off the true pace and distance.
I'm going to continue recording what it tells me for each interval, which should become more accurate as the interval times increase.
All the best,
Andy
I have a TImex Ironman system, but I haven't used it in a while because I was not having fun. I was too focused on my times. So I just go out and I estimate the pace. I want a general idea of time and pace so I use www.mapmyrun.com
Keep up the running- never forget to have fun!
Ann
Hey Ann,
I also use mapmyrun - I've used it to check up that Mr Garmin is reasonably accurate. Which so far he is.
The interval training on Garmin is just what I need right now - little beeps to tell me to stop and start - so I'm sticking with it. And I like my gadgets of course.
Thanks for reading.
Andy
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