Back at it, nice and slow

Well folks, I'm back at it again. Its been a little while. I stopped giving accounts of my training and competitions this last year at Trinity Western. It was a bit of a rough patch. I was never able to fully get enough base to prevent injury when we stepped up the intensity. I had a few good runs in there in cross country towards the beginning with the first race being a 26:05 5 miler. After that it was downhill and trying to prevent my IT band from exploding. Track was even worse as I spent around 4 days a week trying to cross train instead of run and the other 2 either racing or putting in higher intensity runs that left me limping my way off the track. So 1:56 800 and a 2:34 1k was about all I could pull out. Now that I've had tons of time off, I'm getting back into it with a different attitude. I'm taking things slow and building a lot of base and core, slowly. Did I mention I'm going to make sure I don't take things too fast? I spent the past two weeks just running 3 days a week, M-W-F, with only about 30 minutes each day on a silly treadmill at work(ick). The Friday of the second week I went ahead and put in 45 minutes, but thats all I upped it. Now I've started last week with everday 6 out of 7 days. I still put in only minor mileage and am focusing a little more on my core and especially strengthening my glutes to avoid the IT band issue. Just simply push-ups, my own sort of sit-ups, lunges, and side-step step-ups(adaptation of a lunge) for the gluteus minimus. So far no complaints from the IT band except for a few moments on occasion which simply reminds me to lift with my glutes and it goes away almost instantaneously. Now on to the boring day to day of last week. Monday: I put in an easy 30 minutes with 2 sets of 20 push-ups and sit-ups(my version I sit up and turn my body to touch my right elbow to my left knee and vice versa then go down and touch each elbow to the ground making sure I'm turning my body instead of my shoulders and arms). I then did my 40 lunges(20 each leg) and 40 side-step-ups(20 each leg) to round it out. I'll add some static core in here in the next couple weeks I figure. Tuesday: Easy 25 minutes Wednesday: Easy 35 minutes with core and lunges with 5 pull-ups. Thursday: Easy 20 minutes Friday: Easy 45 minutes with core/lunges and 5 pull-ups. Saturday: Easy 60 minutes on a gravel road in my vibrams helped keep it slow and easy, which is the harder part of these runs right now. Treadmills make it easier since they don't speed up unintentionally. So there you have it. Do I have any plans for races? Not really. We'll see what happens in the future. I tell you what though I'm really looking forward to some good running in Papua New Guinea! Running Toward God, Jason