Sal's

Running, Biking, Swimming, Triathlons, Snowshoeing: what's next? Sal's kicks butt.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Lessons Learned This Week

For the past seven days I've been able to start running again. The physical therapist has me running and walking every other day, with the running intervals up to one mile. I'm supposed to keep my pace at 50-75% of what my everyday pace used to be (8-9 minutes a mile, so now over 10/mile).

I can't bike again until my tendons and muscles get used to the running. Once again I can only swim with the buoy. I do tons of leg strengthening and stretching exercises, ones that if I'm smart I will be doing for the rest of my life.

This week I learned several lessons, including;

1. It's impossible to predict when the pool at Monroe Community College or Roberts Wesleyan College will have a free lane. There should be an app to check on this before walking or driving all the way there.
2. College swimmers at MCC are really fast, or I am really slow, or both. Of course they can do flip turns and I don't try, but still, these young swimmers are fast. It's really noticeable when they fly by in the lane next to me. I try to stay up with them but it's just not possible.
3. Swimming, biking, lifting weights and stretching are all great. I can't wait until the weather warms up enough to swim at Canandaigua Lake. But none of them seem to help with running a decent pace. I struggled with my 10:20 mile yesterday.
4. The private college (Roberts) pool is generally open 10+ hours a day six days a week and 7 hours on Sunday. The tax payer supported community college pool is open 5 days a week (maybe), for almost 2 hours. It's convenient for me because I work at MCC and sometimes can swim at lunch time. But why only 2 hours? Why not open more, at least when the team doesn't need the pool, and charge for admittance to cover the cost of a lifeguard and maintenance? I don't understand.
5. I really like running. I like running more than swimming, biking or weight training. In my dream world I would have muscles like a well-built linebacker in professional football but be able to run a 10k like a young Bill Rodgers.
6. Intervals and drills help make the swim time and yards go by much faster than just swimming a straight 1200 yds, or mile or whatever. But in running I don't mind just going for 30, 40 or 60 minutes at the same pace.
7. I don't trip and fall in the pool. Running, I'm scared of falling all the time now. I have to get over that.

Stayed tuned, this may all be on the next Common Core test in NY, unless you opt out. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Test questions for this blog post would make more sense than the questions the kids are working on this week in school....

Anonymous said...

Alfred Pennyworth: Took quite a fall, didn't we, Master Bruce?
Thomas Wayne: And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

Confucius: Our greatest glory is not in never falling down, but in rising every time we fall.

Jon Bon Jovi: Success is falling 9 times and getting up 10.

Unknown: Don't let the fear of falling down keep you from flying!