My Rebuttal

Oooh... this online banter is fun. I look forward to this like a 5 year old looks forward to a new My Little Pony.

Yes, I will admit... no way in hell am I doing a leg workout with Kirk. Today I decided to do about 15 minutes of upper body weights (yes, this is why I need Carl) and then a tempo run. I was "supersetting" some tricep bench dips with tricep pullovers at 30 lbs. First, my weights were all scattered today without a real sequence or purpose (again why I need Carl). This was the one thing I remembered from my last workout with Kirk a few months ago, so I went for it. Anyways, I do my little dips and then my little 30 lbs pullovers. Meanwhile, Kirk does real tricep dips on the bars while having 55 lbs strapped to his wait. Then he supersets the dips with the same pullovers I did on my machine but ups the weight to 110 lbs. I put my tail between my legs and headed from the treadmill.

Today I warmed up for a mile then ran three miles at the following pace:
8:19
8:19
7:53

I walked briefly and then headed over to Kirk who still had 2 minutes left on the stepmill. I jokingly said "want to do 15 more minutes?" and he actually said yes. Damn, backfire. Because I'd already been shown the door in the weight room, I filled up my water bottle and pouted my way through the next 15 minutes on the stepmill.

I have been reading a lot lately about speed training and recovery. In University when we played soccer twice a day we'd sit in ice tubs after each practice. This was great for reducing swelling, preventing injury and eyeing the men's football team who was either in the tubs with us or sitting in the adjoining PT room nursing their injuries. Anyways, we'd get into these really deep, metal tubs and scoop ice from the ice making machine into the water. It was the most excruciating pain imaginable, like knives jabbing into your quads. Let's not even mention how it made "that special place between the legs" feel.

After the 8 mile "long run" on the treadmill this weekend I made my own ice tub at home. I wasn't ready to do the real thing, so I filled it up with cold water and added one glass of ice. It was cold, but not nearly as bad as the old school days, but it made a big difference in recovery. I did a 45 minute workout yesterday (15 rowing, 20 stepmill, 10 treadmill) and felt ok. Today though, the tempo run felt really good. Still have soreness in my ankles/Achilles, but the general overall pain isn't nearly as bad.

I decided to up the cold to see if I can get this Achilles pain to go away. Filled up the tub with cold water again, jumped in to get a little adjusted. Then I took the entire ice maker from the freezer and dumped all of the cubes in. The first three minutes you start gasping for air and your muscles twitch and the special place hurts. But, after 3 sweet minutes, you go numb and you can just feel the swelling go away. Despite the 3 minutes of torture, I'm probably going to do this after each long run and hopefully keep the injuries down to a minimum. Plus, some sick part of me keeps thinking that it makes me less bloated and skinnier for about 5 minutes. Whatever it takes to take the plunge I guess.

So I miss Allison and I miss her writing. I have been saying "that special place between the legs" because we have been dropping a lot of VAG on the blog. I think I might start using Oprah's term for it, vajayjay. :-)

Because I'm taking Wednesday off to fly home and doing Mountain Conditioning Thursday morning (yes, that's right... getting up at 4:45 am on vacation!) I'm going to try to do the 7 mile speed workout tomorrow morning. Same crap I did last week...