Athletics week 7 - a rollercoaster ride

Been a bit slack posting this update.  Since my previous post and success, I had put in a good week of training.  Some technique improvements that significantly increased my top speed at training.  Later that week, I was also running 200m even faster than the PB I set 5 days earlier.  So, with my 100m having been around for over 2 months, I was pretty confdent of setting a new time for myself.  However, around 30 metres into the race, my left hamstring gave out, and I was unable to maintain speed.  I did finish the race, in a time of 20.95. That ended my day there and then.

3 days later, I had already entered in a Masters meet.  After the hamstring issue, I changed my entry to include the 800m event.  I don't normally run the 800m, it's a bit long for me to be really competitive, but it is a good one when I don't have power available.  Despite a (deliberately) very slow start and being unable to push into the wind on one part of the track, I finished with a PB of 2:51.28 (previous was around 2:55).  I also competed in the long jump, taking it easy, with a best jump of 3.20m.

The rest of last week was light training sessions and some massage.  The massage revealed a lot of lower back/upper glute tightness, which is likely to have contributed to the hamstring problem.  Last Saturday, there was no local meet, and I took the opportunity to mostly rest, but did some walking, running, strength work and stretching in the hydrotherapy pool at the local gym.  My last day of work for the year on Friday also helped recovery, as I do quite a bit of walking and light to moderate physical work on the job.

Returned to training last night.  This was my first real test since the weekend rest.  At athletics training, we were doing 400m starts.  I did take a couple of precautions to avoid overstressing my hamstring.  Firstly, I did a "rolling start", instead of a normal block start, and I did slightly limit how much power I used in the first 7 seconds, especially in the early acceleration phase.  After several starts, we finished the session with a full 400m run.  I completed that in 67 seconds, which is comparable to my 66.65 PB. 

A 15 minute drive across town and it was fire brigade training time.  Because we were time limited, we trained the dry events, known as marshalls.  On the positive side for me, there are no long stretches where I would be likely to stretch out too far, but these events require you to stay low, which does increase stress on the hamstrings.  However, I had no issues during this session either.  With a bit of care, I'll be 100% for the weekend.

This weekend is the first of the fire brigade competitions, so I'll be putting my sprint training to the test, especially in the wet events, where there are relatively long sprints required.  More news as it comes to hand! :)