Pilates

Like most runners who can also ride a bike but swim like a soggy pipe-cleaner, I've often thought about trying a triathlon and immediately given up on the idea.

Another big factor has been the sheer amount of training triathletes do; not for me. And yet...

my Tuesday started with a 7.30am warm-up for a nicely intense track session with Ric Rojas: a series of alternating 400s and 200s with 200m jog/walk recovery between each effort, starting easy and getting progressively harder.

Over the course of a good few months of torture on the slightly higher-tech version of a rack they call a "Cadillac" in trhe Pilates world, my lower back got stronger and stronger... and then I went to England for three weeks.

There were times during the first month of starting Pilates to rehab my adductor strain that I wondered whether I was actually a Pilates practitioner who happened to do a bit of running, rather than a runner using Pilates to recuperate.

It turns out neither is the case. Richard Rossiter, the man in charge at Pilates of Boulder, quickly caught on to the fact that I have running goals at the very limit of my capabilities, and started working on all my weak areas (and there are many!).

That's the title of a great article by exercise physiologist extraordinaire Dr. Owen Anderson that rescued my workout today.

I'll see if I can get permission to publish it on the site; but there's a simple, lesson from it that I can share. Here it is: If you're feeling really, really "off" and don't think you can train -- do two intervals or seven minutes as fast as you can, THEN quit.

Today in Boulder was a summer's day. But I was so knackered (English expression meaning very, very tired, originating from what they do to exhausted horses) that I really wasn't up to what was on the schedule: a quality session involving quite a few reps at a decent pace.

Compared to practising a triple axel with double toe loop and back flip to finish while holding a woman wearing lethal ice skate blades above my head, I'd have to say that the technical challenges of running are minimal.

But that won't stop me having a good winge.

After weeks of making sure I am running UNDER 70% of my beart rate reserve, for today's run coach Bobby McGee demands 55 minutes at 75%. Man, this is difficult (winge, winge). We find ourselves between blizzards here in Boulder so for once I know I can pick a route that is on non-icy ground. Which means I am running faster, more easily. (I know, I never stop complaining, do I?)

My legs aren't working. Or something.

Just been out an "easy" hour following the Lydiard principle: out for half an hour, turn round and get home in the same time.

Only my legs wouldn't co-operate. They started to seize up with 10 minutes left on the clock.

Of course, this is only my third "proper" run after a five-week lay-off. But even so, I'd expected to be moving like the "old" me by now.

The lay-off started as a scheduled two-week rest and ended up being a month-long round of serial therapy as my body decided to present me with several "matters requiring attention." Like the four-month-old niggling adductor strain. In the middle of my new routine of excrutiating soft-tissue work (thanks, Mark Plaatjes), "magic" accupuncture (thank you Dr. Ma) and Spanish Inquisition-style remedial Pilates (thank you, Richard "Nobody expects..." Rossiter), I sprained my ankle.