Dec 28

FIT:
Loop> 2.2 mi in 17:35. Splits: 7:30 r, 10:04 h. Effort 7/10, so no biggie. Would've done another, but decided not to, since not bad, but not 100%. 8:00/mi exactly. Great... hold that for 11 more 2.2 mi laps. Afterwards, since I hadn't pushed hard, I decided to work on form. Earlier that morn, I started to read Run for Life. It's a book all about form, it seems. Most books just tell you about drills on a high level, and even the better books merely tell you what muscle it works. This book tells you more. High knees, for ex, are good b/c otherwise, ppl use their hip flexors very rarely in normal life. Butt kicks are key b/c that position reduces the moment of inertia (in my own words), making less effort necessary to pull the leg back out to the front. I also did vert arm drills, since reducing cross-body movement reduces the lateral movement that is both wasteful and injury-inducing. So I did 2x30s of those three, plus 30s ea of lat and vert hop-over-lines. I think it'd be even better if I did them barefoot next time, to hone the proprioception that is deadened by the wearing of shoes. I think I'll even try barefoot running. It definitely sounds good. It should eliminate heel strikes. I think I don't do that much anyways, but we'll see how much of a difference it makes. I'm more scared of splinters in the grass than rubbing my feet raw on asphalt. We'll see. I think my arm swing is good, at least when I'm not tired. I know I've had bad arm swing previously, though, so I think it depends on fatigue. Keeping a palms-up light fist turns your elbow inwards automatically, though, so I'll try to focus on that and maybe even hold something in my hands (to mimic the $40 e3's hand grips). Experimenting is fun (we'll see if my feet agree after the barefoot attempt).

Injury report: This morn when I woke up, my inner left thigh was hurting. Strange b/c usually, it's the right. So I rolled b/f running and played Wii to warm up and felt ok enough to run. During the run, didn't really notice, though a couple times, my rt knee didn't track perfectly. Minimal issues, though.

Bod report: My butt's bigger, I think. Could be the 2lbs I gained in the past 3 days. Cd be bio factors, or cd be the holiday feasting. But it's sore, too, so prob at least it's partially from new muscle. Maybe it's from the squats I did via Wii the other day, or that the more normal (if you can count a couple 4-5milers as normal, since it's still a far cry from the daily 6-8's or the 16ers) running is kicking in, or the extra resistance from a brief shot of double elastic bands triggered hypertrophy.