Year 2010 in review

• Running 1260 miles
• Biking 1607 miles
• XC skiing 111 miles
• Numerous core workouts
• Disturbing amount of eccentric workouts
• One baby boy

I ran only one miserable race in April. It had bad news written all over it since I felt totally tired due my parents uncertain issues because of dad's illness. The low energy level was present the entire Spring season. Running sucked many times and I felt sometimes way too unmotivated to do anything else. But back to the race which was was a 6.2 miler (36:23) on road. Believe me, running that race felt even worse than the result indicates. After that I was ready for stop running on that day. But luckily Carlos (et al.) from HCS was going to visit us so I had to keep on running in order to show him around Turku.

Less than a week after they left the country I sprained my left glute and hamstring muscles and I had to take 5 weeks off. Thereafter, the butt/hamstring problems continued AND my left achilles began hurting even more because of the time off.

Since not being able to run and still considering myself to be some sort of athlete, I accompanied myself with Trek and started biking solo and sometimes with local triathletes. Of course with low levels of patience I found myself biking a 90 miler only 4 days after Trek was assembled. Road biking was actually way more fun than I expect before and that's why I sort of got addicted to it. June, July and August went by and achilles was already hurting while sitting, sleeping and standing up. I couldn't anymore walk without pain which was the last straw. Achilles was operated in September and only last week I had an extremely nice run without pain. So I'm really for new adventures but only after achilles is totally recovered.

In addition to the more or less painless achilles, I have to add one more positive result for this year: I have gained 10 extra pounds. Unfortunately, I think that I'll get rid of it soon.

I'm really happy to leave this year's athletic achievements behind and find out what's up in MMXI!!!

Happy New Year!

Out-of-shape dude commented: "Achilles is getting better"

Without a clear target it's a task to motive yourself. Although I'm happy with the current steady state of alternating days of skiing and running I'm soon ready for more (this week I've run 10 miles and skied about 13 miles). Luckily, the recovery is still in progress so I have to keep myself patient for couple weeks. And the best thing is that the operated achilles is silent and co-operative. Well, yesterday after running and walking a bit it began aching, but a little dose of ice eased that pain.

This far I can confess that I'm totally out of shape. The tiny amount of xc skiing hasn't helped me much and the last decent bike ride is from early September. Running feels so heavy now but to find a reason for that doesn't require a degree in rocket science: After returning from the US I weighed 140 and now the scale shows almost 150. That sucks, but eating is too fun!

Tomorrow I'll have to review the year 2010. I have a gut feeling that it wasn't the best athletic year of my life.

An intervention

Week 51: 10 miles. It's a start.

Today I was supposed to go skiing, but parent's house made an intervention to my schedule. Their heating system had shut down two days ago (they were having a vacation somewhere else) and it was freezing inside. Water pipes were frozen and so on... In addition, we had to work a lot in order to get dad's wheelchair back inside due to the current blizzard.

Tomorrow...  it's running time. Next two weeks I will alternate running and skiing and thereafter I might emphasize running and include some workouts in the non-existing training schedule.

Brrrrr....

It almost -10F outside. Normally it wouldn't hurt that much but today I'm afraid that the low amount of time spent outside this winter haven't prepared me for this kind of weather. I was going ski this morning, but since I have only one skiing mode (full steam ahead), I chose not to. Core workout time instead...

Run happy

YYYYYYEEEEEAAAAAAAH!!!!

I just ran 3 miles without any pain. That is so awesome. My previous running experience was about a month ago which was really painful. Couple days after that I had an appointment with the doc who promised that I will run happy around xmas. And what you know.... that really happened. This boost of recovery is mainly due to serious amounts of eccentric exercises which the doc adviced me to do.

Now I will continue to run every second day and ski in between (+ eccentrics & core workouts). Then I hope that I'm able to complete the next big things on my running schedule in January and September.

No skiing

I was supposed to run today. Instead I focus on being lazy. Have you ever felt that way?

Pretty interesting blog post...

Another week...

Still skiing. But it doesn't matter, since next week will include some running.

Stick your skis...

An old (but not -ie), instant classic got stuck in my head while I was doing my thing on skis this morning (and yes I still strongly dislike xc skiing). If nothing else, I thought that it would brilliant if someone else would also be harassed by the same song.


Here you go...

Achilles is healing!!!

But I'm still skiing. More skiing tomorrow. And on Sunday too.

Don't give a damn. I'm sure that I will run again!

Slow progress hurts my brain

Without saying... I'm not yet able to run. Still skiing instead. Luckily, the weather conditions are pretty opportune for XC skiing and less optimal for testing my achilles. I might have a sneak preview (and run) tomorrow at indoor track.

But tomorrow's news is that I'm again gettin' older.

XC Skiing sucks

My time on skiing paths has continued from Sunday. Even if I dislike the whole idea of XC skiing almost as much as aqua running, it is my only way to get my engine humming. Running is not yet an option since the running conditions are bit too unhealthy for recovering achilles. I've started skiing around 6 AM which means that your ass freezes off due to low temperatures (like yesterday it was sub 0F).

I have to confess that achilles is now doing better day after day. Creaking (Pt. II) has slowly left the building and I'm able to do some of the eccentric workouts which I'm supposed to do. So good news this time.