After Joseph’s crazy repeat mile threshold workout on Tuesday, Wednesday was an easy day for sure. But, he got a decent one on Thursday out here in Sessums. It was less of a distance based workout than time based. The workout consisted of 4 X 2 minutes fast with 1 minute jogs between, 6 X 1 minute fast with 30 seconds jogs, and 8 X 30 seconds fast with 30 second jogs. On Friday, the kid got a run in over near the high school and Longmeadow neighborhood where he said he ran for at least an hour.
We planned on doing a workout on Saturday at the track, but the weather was crazy, with rain all day, so we took the day off from running. I got a decent upper body workout in that morning though! It rained pretty much all day and night into Sunday morning. Even so, the gravel roads at the South Farm were runable and bikeable on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately, with the rolling hills there, it drains pretty quickly. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t muddy however! We met at the South Farm at 3 PM and Kamau Bostic, Steve Shaffer, Brent Wallace, and James (Brent’s roommate) joined us. I thought about running and testing the foot, but opted to be good and ride my bike. Kamau and Joseph took off at a brisk pace, with everybody else following. Not sure why, but they were cruising along at about 5:55 for the first 3.6 miles and probably were not slower than 6:30 for the next 4 miles, at which point Kamau headed back to his car for about a 10 mile run in total. Joseph wanted to get in 90 minutes of running, so he kept going, albeit at a slightly slower pace for the remaining few miles. The other guys did a six mile loop. James and Brent were pushing each other (literally, I saw James trying to push Brent into a ditch!). But, it was all in fun. Overall, it was a pretty afternoon, cloudy, about 50°, but very windy, with winds from the north at around 20 miles an hour!
I ordered a night splint (see photo below) to wear while I sleep for my plantar fasciatus issue. Don’t know if it will help, but it probably won’t hurt! Actually, some people have told me they had successful recoveries while using them. I also read in the book “The Lore of Running” that a study showed much higher and quicker rates of recovery for runners with this same injury who used a night splint type of boot. Guess I will see. Also still doing the recommended stretches, but probably not enough!
Thinking about taking Joseph down to the Vicksburg Run through History 10K on March 3rd. This is the 33 year for this race. I have never raced it myself, but I did take my youngest brother Mike down there when he was about Joseph’s age. Pretty difficult course with lots of hills, but I have it on good authority from Peter Rabideau that the awards are way cool. The day before that race is the Southern Mississippi High School Invitational in Hattiesburg, MS. I thought about entering Joseph in that as an unattached runner and got word that he was entered from the coach there. However, after talking with the higher ups at the Mississippi Public Schools Athletic Association, I am unclear if he is eligible to run as an unattached runner in this meet or not. Because his is not running track at his school, which has a track team, he is not permitted to run in high school sponsored meets. But, apparently he can run in true College hosted high school invitationals. I say true, because if the entire team from a high school is allowed to run at the meet, then it is not really considered an invitational, and he would not be able to run. The college hosted meets in MS limit entries to two persons per event, so I am unclear on how this affects his running. Are they true invitationals? Everybody can’t run, only 2 per event. I don’t know, I am just a parent dude. Looks like I need to make another call! What happens if he runs and he was not supposed to? Does this disqualify him from running track at the school in his junior or senior years if he wants to? Does he turn into a monkey? Grey areas. Need answers. The other question is does he even want to run at a track meet right now. The running is going well for sure, and there are plenty of road races to keep him occupied if he so desires.
Ah well.
Joe MacGown's Running Blog 