Monthly report: Sep-2010

UltraBirken-2010

In short this month has consisted of two weeks of tapering and an competition period of two weeks-the latter with one A-priority competition at the end of the week.
In the beginning of the tapering-period I suffered from a ligth stretch in both my hamstrings. In addition I was subjected to a virusinfection that put me off for a couple off days.
At the end of the tapering period I felt very fit, but experienced injury-problems. I had pain in my butt  right where the muscles of the feet is attached to the butt. I spent some time stretching and made use of ice and managed to reduce the pain. I didn't disappear, though.
First week of the competition period I participated in the race UltraBirken. I finsihed, but somewhat slower than I'd expected. I experienced again pain in my butt and felt a bit unfit on race-day. I endured a great deal of pain to finish the race. The race was nearly pure trail and I need to train more on racelike conditions to improve on my finish time.
Second week of the competition period I was just resting and trying to recover after UltraBirken which cost a lot of effort to finish. Anyway, I felt rather fit at Berlin Marathon and managed again to finish at PB under difficult conditions with a crowdlike race and lousy weather.

Evaluation:
I went through three, tough races in August-the last one at the end of the month-and I didn't recover properly before starting the tapering period. As a matter of fact I needed to start the tapering period a week earlier. I've been putting a lot of strain on my body both in July and August and I suffered from that in September. I have scheduled to many competitions on a limited time-range. In addition I'm not good enough to differ between hard and easy workouts. Further on my quality workouts is to lengthy. Not including cross-training in
the building period was a mistake. I paid the price with experiencing injuries in my hamstrings and butt.
Both the races taught me invaluable lessons. First I need to train more in the terrain to improve on my time. Second I'm able to endure a lot of pain allready and I'm sure that I can improve a lot on that area by including mental training in my programme. Thirdly, I need to improve on my nutrition-intake during my races-I have to establish a routine. Fourth, my core is weak and I need to improve on that in order to increase on my running pace and keep it steady over the whole time of the race. Fifth, I'm attending to many races. It wears me out and leave me less prepared for the important races. Sixth, I need to improve on my recovery routine-in general and after competitions.

1. Total activity:
-Workouts: 12, including 2 A-priority competitions
-Distance: 224,9 km
-Time: 25h 3m 4s
-Verticals: 2.948 m
-Calories: 14.805 C
-Days off: 18 days of 30(60 %, the whole month is in the tapering and competition period adn half a week in the transition period).

2. Running:
-Workouts:10
-Distance: 208,59 km
-Time: 23h 21m 50s
-Verticals: 2.836 m
-Calories: 13.919 C

3. Bike:
-Workouts: 1
-Distance: 16,34 km
-Time:  51m 14s
-Verticals: 112 m
-Calories: 886 C

4. Strength:
-Workouts: 0
-Time: 0m

5. Flexibility:
-Workouts: 1 (sportsmassage)
-Time: 50m

6. Shoes(as of 3th of Oct):
-Mizuno Wave Ronin (purchased 8.4.10)     : 512 km
-Puma Concinnity (purchased 30.4.10)        : 220 km
-Montrail Masochist (purchased 14.5.10)     : 415 km
-Mizuno Wave Aero 8 (purchased 28.7.10) : 146 km
-Saucony Kinvara (purchased 9.9.10)          : 56 km
-Puma Trailfox (purchased sep 2006)          : 40 km