Sunday 14 August 2016

Just for fun.. ...but with a serious learning outcome!

I took part in a Southampton AC session yesterday (Saturday) morning.

I love Saturday morning sessions.  They last about 2 hours, and we accumulate about 3 minutes running!  Most of the rest of the time we are chatting.  Chatting and warming up, chatting and activating, chatting and stretching!

Anyway, yesterdays session was a 6x150m in two sets of 3.  5 minutes between rep, and 20 mins between sets.

You may recall that I've done no speed this summer at all!  Some speed endurance, but no speed.

My desired outcome for the session was to see if the brain/muscle pathways can be maintained at speeds well beyond what I've already established.

In this regard, the session was a failure!

I ran consistent times between 20.5 and 21.4 - that's 02:15/km (well below target 800m pace of 2:32/km).

This is the result - I'm closest the camera in red.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTpRLXFrCa0

Here is the bare minimum of what's going wrong (these still frames are from the 5th of 6 reps, and I was getting pretty tired).

On the left, I see bad hip drop - the left (suspended) hip is dropping off to such an extent that the right shoulder is almost coming down to meet the right hip!  I'm surprised my right elbow hasn't bruised the hip!



On the right, I see over-stride, and bent torso.

Of course, it would be nice to have some footage and still frames from a 2:45/km session that I did on Tuesday where I could feel much better style, just to prove (to you, or to me, I don't know) that I have made better progress than this in one year!!

HOWEVER!  Do not despair!  It's a long way from 2:45/km to 2:15/km and I need to work my way down in pace (or, up in speed!) gently, not in one jump.

Finally, I know that it is not good to be doing ANY training in poor style, be that at 2:15/km or 10 mins/km!  But I just wanted to have a blast!

My other motive for this session was just to have some fun, spend some time with some really good friends, and remind myself what it's like to let rip!   In this regard, the session was a MASSIVE success!

1 comment:

  1. Hmm, as I look back on the session 2 days later, I'm becoming a little more disappointed that I trained at a speed that was SO much faster than a pace where I can hold my style. It was great fun, but I worry about the lasting effects on all the good work I've done. Actually, it was REALLY good fun. But I feel like I've been unfaithful to my principles, and therefore a bit guilty. Perhaps I'll stick to chocolate next time!

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