Sunburn Confirmed!

Sunburn Confirmed!

Continue the charge - Never quit!!

As I hoped, today's running was much better than Sunday. I was able to run much faster today compared to last week.  I had very little hint of a flare at any time.  I'll continue to be careful but I feel I dodged a bullet.

Here's the deal - basically a easy week of tapering before a big meet, followed by and easy week of recovery.  That's a two week "break".  When I return, I ramp up with lower weights and intensities. So basically three week period of cumulative maybe 0-50% effort.  Coming back is challenging, but if I don't do it this way I get hurt.

Training has been tough as my body adapts to a hard routine again. I get it, but as I age it's frustrating how fast you can lose strength, and how bad it feels trying to regain it. I do know that once the momentum reverses and goes positive, that it's easy to continue to improve.  I figure another week I'll have some real progress.

My friend and former decathlete, Ed Derse, used to talk about how, just when you feel like you're an athlete again, you start weight training and your body feels devastated trying to adapt.  He goes on to say that after several weeks of this, when his body has adapted, he has to go back and questions why he thought he was an athlete before, if he's this much stronger now.

I know for a fact that when I jump only, that within three weeks I'm down 3-4 poles from fading strength and loss of horsepower on the runway.  My friend, Wendell Beck, told me in Auckland that he's finally come to the conclusion that you can train or jump, but not both.  I believe I can still jump once a week and make physical progress, but not as fast as if I ran my strength and speed program two rotations a week instead of one.

The bottom line for me is that I have to keep challenging the physical and speed improvement, which is harder and harder as aging tries to reverse me.  With that consideration I'm improving if I stay the same, but of course we will never be able to buy into that.

Here's what I know - Reno/January/biggest pole gripping 11'10" from 6 lefts, Auckland/April/same pole gripping 12' from 5 lefts, and Grand Haven/July/same pole flex is way too small with a 12'2" grip from 4 lefts.  On September 9th at the Masters PV Symposium, I hope to end up four poles bigger from 5 lefts and a 12'8" grip.  

Clearly what I'm doing is working, but for me to get where I want to be by Malaga, Spain next year, I'm going to have to continue this consistent hammering.   Thanks for checking in and have a great day!  Bubba

Badass Lemmy and Motorhead - "Ace of Spades" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBIa0o36pPo