Ancona EMACI 2016 (11th European Masters Athletics Championships Indoor), day 3: 200m series When the entry lists for the EMACI first appeared online in early March, it looked like my best chance to go on to the next round (half-finals) was in the 200m. As …
Ancona EMACI 2016 (11th European Masters Athletics Championships Indoor), day 1: 60m series All throughout the day leading up to my 60m series, I was doing mental mathematics: 14:36 minus 20 minutes call-room minus 1 hour warm-up equals the time I was supposed to start …
Having a competition after an 8-hour work day is always a bit of a challenge. But yet, that’s the reality of the Luxembourgish indoor championships, where I was running the 60m and 200m series on Friday evening, and looking to qualify for the finals on Saturday.
I was off to a bad start. Not just figuratively, either. My 60m start is often my weak spot, and in the series it once again seemed that I was reacting slower than everyone else. Consequently, I had a hard time catching up, and crossed the finish line in a disappointing 4th position. Needless to say that I was too slow to qualify for the final. My 7″53 was only the 11th best time of the evening, and that’s not counting a couple of foreign starters who were only allowed to run the series.
Of note in this series was that Tom Reuter (in yellow/black) had a much faster start than me but pulled a muscle in the final meters, as can be seen below.
The 200m series were a little better. I was in the same heat as Pol Bidaine, who’d go on to win the final. If I wanted to qualify for the final, all I could do was therefore to accept that someone was easily in front of me, and then try and limit the damage by placing ahead of everyone else. This worked to the extent that I finished 2nd and ran 23″50, an improvement over my previous 2016 best, but of course the gap was very noticeable.
The next day, I didn’t line up for the 60m final at 15:00 (I could have – there were a number of people who had qualified but decided not to run). But I didn’t know that in advance, and considering the state of my achilles tendon, it was already a stretch to do the 200m final a day after two races. Since I was still pretty fresh in my injury recovery, there was a fairly thin line that separated me from over-extending myself. Instead, since the wife and I had guests for lunch, I was able to actually stay home for the entire duration of lunch instead of heading to the indoor track while our guests would still have been eating.
Said lunch still influenced my 200m final however, because I probably had a little too much of it too closely to the 16:00 race. As if a full belly wasn’t enough trouble, my left foot was also problematic. While the achilles was holding up comparatively well, I was fighting some instability issues that have been cropping up quite often in recent years because I’m just not used to running in spikes anymore. This instability issue translates to pain at the top of my foot, and it was distracting enough that I was very concerned that I wouldn’t be able to start, or finish. In the end, I decided to tough it out, and ran the final, although in a distracted state. I crossed the finish line in a a disappointing 23″97, almost in last place.
February was a solid training month. Once more, I concentrated on quality track workouts, which means I didn’t get as much hill/trail running done as I’d want. Road, trail and track running: 43km on roads and/or stairs in 5h21 with 1669m of elevation; no real …
I did my final indoor meeting for 2015/2016 on Luxembourgish soil this past Saturday, over one month after the Luxembourgish Championships. Athletes in the national team were afforded two more opportunities to compete in between, but the rest of us had to make do with …
January was a break-through month. My main focus finally moved from the achilles injury and recovery to actual running. I was able to successfully participate at three indoor track competitions. While the performances are much slower than my personal bests, I’m still pretty happy with them considering my age and how much of 2015 I spent injured.
Road, trail and track running: Just like in December, my focus was on the track, and as a consequence I did almost no road or trail running. Out of eight possible club training sessions (on Tuesday and Thursday) I attended seven. Of these 7 sessions, 5 were real track sprint workouts. I competed on three weekends, and did a total of 6 races (three 60m, three 200m). My 2016 bests are now 7″50 and 23″50. Outside of track, I only got out for one single 10km trail session, on the first weekend of the year. I’m a little concerned that I’m concentrating too much on short sprints, at the detriment of long hill sessions that I should be doing if I want to run up a few mountains in summer.
Walking: Most of my walking/hiking in January was on lunch walks, ranging from 2km to 6km. In total, I walked 74km in 13h35, with 1200m of elevation change. I was therefore more consistent with this than in December.
Cycling: It’s hard to be consistent with cycling in January weather, especially since it is merely a means to cross-train (I do not have any cycling-specific goals right now). Still, I’ll take whatever I can get. 4h26 in the saddle, 95km and 1020m of elevation.
Weight training: After many months of no weight training in my home gym, I might finally have restarted that habit in late January. Did three sessions at home in the final two weeks of the month, trying to build a base that focuses on basic lifts and reasonable workload.
Total time outside: 24h39
Average body weight: 81.28kg. Body fat 15.09%. Better than December. My weight was down by about 1kg, and body fat improved a little as well.
For the second competition in 2016, I’d come up with a grandiose plan: I’d run the 200m, rest for about two hours and then give it all in a 400m, a distance I’d never done indoors. Reality would turn out to be different, though. The …
When I signed up for the 60m race on Tuesday 5th, I was quite sure I was going to be in way over my head. While the doctor had cleared me (and my achilles) for racing, it had been just four short months since I’d …
Injuries & treatment: I had a lot of doctor visits and physiotherapy appointments in December, as we were coming to an end of the “treatment” phase of my achilles injury, and moving towards what will hopefully be a “maintenance” phase in 2016. December saw 7 doctor visits (for laser treatments and final ultra-sound check-ups) and 9 physio-therapy appointments. Having to plan and drive to these 16 appointments took considerable time and energy, so I was happy to see that the achilles won’t require quite the same investment from here on out (if I continue to be smart with training volume, stress and recovery).
Road, trail and track running: Since I’m still trying to have at least 48 hours of space between any two running sessions (be it road, trail or track), that obviously means there’s only a limited amount of sessions I can do in a month. Specifically, this translates to 8 sessions on the track (which was therefore my main focus) or on the short stairs, and only 5 sessions on the trails (with no road sessions). On these 5 trail sessions, I climbed a total of 2000m. In total, I clocked 90km. Even though track was my main focus in December, it took me until the 31st of the final month of the year to do my first “short” sprint session (2x(30m-40m-50m-60m).
Walking: I continued doing quite a few lunch walks in December, but still only totaled 48km and 741m of elevation.
Cycling: Cycling was on a little up-swing compared to November, with 4 sessions and 3h26 in the saddle in total, for 84km and 606m of elevation. Not much, but better cross-training than sitting on the couch.
Total time outside: 27h10
Average body weight: 82.23kg. Body fat 15.37%. Almost unchanged from November.
Injuries & treatment: The achilles continued improving throughout November. I had one doctor visit and five physiotherapy appointments. Road, trail and track running: I had a week-long vacation at the end of November, and I had a few stressful days at work leading up to …