Tuesday, September 18, 2007

New to Mistakes and Lessons

8. Run the descents, walk the ascents. Mistake: No Mistake here, I knew that going into trail running that, and especially with endurance trail runs, you walk the ascents and run the descents. This prevents you from blowing all your energy and killing your legs by trying to run the hills too much.

9. Don't run all the descents and don't walk all the ascents. Mistake: At about mile 16 at the Stevens Creek 50k was an extremely steep downhill. I took it like any other hill and tried to run it, although it was too steep to run so I had to lean back and do a half trot. All this did was not necessarily make up some time but definitely hurt my left knee from the massive amount of pressure the steepness caused from trying to run. I would have been better off walking it with that steep of a descent. Same with hills, run the ones that are manageable, and walk the steep ones.

10. Just say NO! Mistake: After running the 50k last week I started to run again. The day went as such. I ate lunch at 11:00, then met my brother at the gym at 4:00 and did some weight training on my chest and triceps for about 30-40 minutes, then decided to go out and run for an hour at around 5:15. I got .2 of a mile in and knew immediately that it wouldn't be a good running day. Tired legs from the 50k, plus early lunch and hard weight training = no energy and heavy legs. Know when to say no to yourself and either not go out for a scheduled run or stop the run you are doing.

1 comment:

Nancy said...

If I can just learn all your lessons, I will be WAY ahead of the game. Of course I am old and starting late so I need some sort of short cut as opposed to making all the mistakes on my own :)

I love your approach, I think every run teaches us something if we look. My latest, "I have no clue how to comfortably tape my arches, this was a very bad idea!"