The Way Out is Through

A week ago, I ran in another track meet. This one was a dedicated "masters" meet.

11.48

24.60

Remember when I thought I'd run 10.8? Click here to laugh at my idiocy proof.

And thus concludes my 200m season.

I hadn't run a competitive 200m since I think 2011, and one might argue that these 200s I ran this year still don't really count as "competitive", exactly. Regardless, I'm not going to run at a track meet again until the July Masters Champs, and I'm not running the 200 there, so...that's that.

Really, I didn't train for the 200 at ALL. And in hindsight, it kinda seems like I didn't train for ANYTHING. Frankly, the last 10 to 20 meters of even my 100s feel like...I'm barely getting there. And if I'm dragging at the end of a 100...then I'm screwed in a 200.

It's clear to me that I just have NO real front side mechanics right now. And when I was good at sprinting, that was probably my bread and butter. I thought this might be an issue going in, but I half hoped and half expected that as I generally got stronger as I trained, it would just essentially come back. That's more or less what it seemed like happened in 2018/2019. At least from what I remember...

That is not the case this time around. I felt like a doofus at the end of this 11.48 100m dash while I tried to raise my knees while I sputtered to the end of the race. It's certainly pleasant that as I was running I had no injury fear to speak of...but perhaps the reason I have so little injury fear is simply because my angles, forces, ROM, and overall effort lacks as much risk. Because I'm slow now.

I had started typing out this post essentially right after the meet and I'm only coming back around to finishing it a week later. The fact is, I actually aggravated my quad in the 200m run, and I didn't even really know it until I moved around a bit later in the day. Initially I thought it was super minor, and I went ahead and did a big power clean/depth jump super set workout a couple days ago. While attempting to jump onto a 50" box, I REALLY aggravated the quad on the hip flexion to get on the box. And it's possible...that I might be in some trouble for the Masters Champs now.

The plan was to train HARD in these last couple weeks to knock off as much time as possible to make a good showing at the Masters Champs. Butttt, I don't know how that's going to play out now. I'm trying to train my way AROUND the quad, which probably means I'm just gonna make it worse like I did on the box jump. But I don't really want to just sit around attempting to let it heal only run another 11.5ish, or worse, again. So. I dunno, I guess I'm gonna try to force the issue a bit and see what happens.

I think a big component of why I tweaked the quad is because I'm trying to get back those frontside mechanics that I know I need to run better. But I don't have a lot of the "infrastructure" to make it happen right now, so that perhaps lead to my quad problem. Maybe if I really do stick to this for another year, this is something I can fix. Or at least improve on a lot...but it's not clear to me how much I deserve to be trying this hard with the limited results I'm getting.  Particularly in comparison to my expectations. 

I had hoped that a massive improvement at nationals would solve that quibble for me, but now it appears that quite the opposite is happening. The injury hasn't been that intense, frankly. But it's come at a very inopportune time. So whatever momentum I might have had is likely being squandered.

Part of my "forcing the issue" and work around with the quad is I'm doing some very chill old running workouts from my back catalog of "training" to try to keep my fitness up. These workouts kinda skip the intense hip flexion needed in full out sprinting...but also have limited carry over to actually improving my sprint hopes in the next 2.5 weeks. So I'm probably still only spinning my wheels with all this, AND perhaps still aggravating the quad, anyway. But this is the direction I'm forging ahead on; we'll have to see the results in the next few days/week. With luck (and I'm not typically a lucky person), the quad will heal pretty quick despite it all, and maybe I can still sneak at least ONE real sprint workout in before July 16th to get myself as prepped as possible.

Really this whole running attempt this year has not worked out at ALL the way I hoped, wanted, nor expected. I now just feel like I need a whole new calendar year of training, rebuilding my running foundation, AND attacking the weight room with more focus again, to give a more honest effort toward my goals. 

But that seems like quite an odd thing to be looking for when this "season" isn't even over yet.  I suppose between the lack of proper fitness and now this injury, this season feels like a wash already. So in that sense, I'm already looking for greener pastures and the promise of more potential for next year.

However, I still have a few weeks to try to salvage something this year, and I HAVE put in a lot of time and effort up till now. So abandoning what is before me would be pretty stupid. Plus, there's even a chance this is a last hurrah, so I should go all in as a result. I mean....I dropped two tenths in a week and I'm STILL essentially at 11.5. Yikes. Pretty embarrassing... It's hard to keep going when reality is so different from what you'd want or expect. And I've got kids and family needs....so there is a question about my intentions with all this since I just ain't as special as I thought.

But there is joy to be had here, too. So...I dunno. For the time being I should just keep my nose to the grindstone I guess.