Call me a big wuss if you want, but I don’t feel STRONG.
I realized this today on my run when I turned a corner. Here I am in a nice run and I have to turn. No big deal, right? Well, it occured to me that I used to turn on a dime w/o thinking about it, but now it is like… well I have to thnk about it. On top of that I chased my dog for about 10 min the other day and I thought I was going to die. All those sharp turns, acceleration, deceleration, stop, start, and I was cooked.
Now I know that I just started back on my training, but SERIOUSLY! WTF? You can argue endurance vs. sprint all you want, but I feel like a camel (if you get the analogy)
Is this par for the course or what?
disclaimer: I’m not pissed, I just find it strange. Have all of my fast twitch muscles gone over to the dark side (well, really the light side biologicly speaking)
I found myself in much the same state of incapacitation after a year (probably less) of strict triathlon training. I think the problem was that flutter kicks, cycling, and running are all in the same forward plane of motion. When I tried to play a pick-up game of basketball I was done after the first 5 min.
As much as some people argue against spending time doing non-event specific training, the “fact” is that if you do not practice the motions of side-to-side, or inconsistent stride length, or jumping, etc, etc…you will lose coordination in those areas.
One potential “work-out” that might help is to find a railroad track and run on the ties. They are not evenly spaced. Some of them will have gravel. You can skip every other one, and so on. Once you get good at running forward, try doing your “grape-vines”. Your side-to-side and quick-step abilities will improve dramatically…hehe…if you don’t break your ankle!