Actually, I did, but not here. Try here.
It’s funny the things one does on the spur of the moment. I’m beginning to see the wisdom of “decide in haste, repent at leisure”. I skipped a training session recently (on a Thursday evening), feeling like rubbish after a day spent in an office with the decorators painting the office next door. I made up for it the following evening, of course, then got home, checked my diary and found I was due to race the next day (a Saturday). I’d originally convinced myself the races were on the Sunday. Ouch.
Well, I got two things from it: a pair of fairly decent 60m times, faster than in Glasgow a few weeks back, but also aches and pains the like of which I don’t think I’ve had for months! And then I was reminded that I was due out for a walk around the Ashdown Forest with a gang of friends on the Sunday. I was ok on the walk provided that there was no up, down, or along….
By the Monday, I had DOMS like never before. DOMS? Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It’s the sport equivalent of a total body hangover. You feel fine after the event. Actually, you may even feel fine for most of the next 24 hours. Then BANG! It’s a very poorly understood condition. I quite like this article about it : http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/domos.html It even gets its own Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness I admit that I am a complete coward in the matter of ice-baths, and I’m pleased to learn from several who have tried, that they are of very limited effect where DOMS is concerned. My sports masseur distinguishes “good pain” from “bad pain”. Bad pain is the stuff from injuries, etc. All the rest, though it never feels like it at the time, is good pain. By this token, my DOMS was great pain!
A massage, and a day later, and the DOMS was largely gone. Or at least, enough to allow me to get in a good mid-week training session. This can be a hard time of year for us track athletes. Traditionally, I augment the hours in the gym with as much indoor competition as I can get to. This year, I chose not to go to the World Masters Indoors in Kamloops, Canada (too far, for too little, in my view), and a couple of my regular competitions got cancelled, so I’m short of races.
Since the last Blog, I decided not to try to “peak” for the more minor competitions available, and just to get on with some hard training. That’s why the Friday evening before the Sunday of the Southern Counties Masters Championships meant training as usual, with the Championships just being a bit of useful speed work. I still got two bronze medals, but really felt like I was there to take part, rather than compete, if that makes sense. I had a busy day behind the camera, mind you. See here http://bit.ly/dnPkXd
I’m looking forward to a little excursion to Belgium that’s coming up in a couple of weeks. Last year, a sprinter friend had the good idea of going to Ghent, for the Belgian Masters Championships, so that we could suss out the track and local hotels, because Ghent will host the European Masters Indoors in March 2011. Word got round, and we now have something like 70 athletes going on our “little” jaunt. Huge thanks to the Belgian Masters authorities and the BMAF’s own Maurice Doogan for oiling the wheels for this trip. It will be good to be running a little faster by the time I get there.
We’ll see…..
Blog from a Faster Master 