Steve Does a Push-Up: Week 1 in Review

Getting back into running's been difficult, what with it being Minnesota in January and all. Here's the data:

Monday: 9.5 miles in 104 minutes (snowing)
Tuesday: 10 in 103.5 (-10 windchill)
Wednesday: 10 in 106.5 (bad footing)
Thursday: 9.5 in 100.5 (tired)
Friday: 6 in 63 (blowing snow, -15 windchill)
Saturday: 10 in 101.5 (-10 windchill)
Sunday: 11 in 103.5 (with 6 in 53; sore achilles and heels)

That's almost exactly two minutes per mile slower than the same week in 2007. The plan had been to run between 100 and 105 minutes each day; I failed only on Friday, when blowing snow drifted and the wind gusts caused me to freeze.

Number crunching

Here's where the obsessiveness begins. I really want to have an idea of what shape I'm in for my goal race of the Superior Sawtooth 100 Mile in 35 weeks.

Best run: 11 in 103.5 equates to a 35 hour finish.
Worst run: 6 in 63 equates to 44:30; 80% of that is 35:30.
Week average gives 39:45; 80% of that is 31:45.

So this week, I'm saying I can do Superior in 35.5 hours, give or take 4 hours. We'll see how that changes week by week.

A sign that I'm getting serious

I hold that speedwork and hill training cover all the strength and resistance training a runner needs. That puts me in a distinct minority in the ultrarunning community. Given the weather and being early in training, I'm not doing any hills or speedwork and so I decided to do some strength training instead.

First, I took off my shirt, looked in a mirror, gave myself a thumbs-up and said, "Duuuude!" Might as well go the whole road.

The exercise I hate most, the equivalent to getting a root canal, is push-ups. I've had a good excuse to not do them, as I broke a finger, then a carpal bone, then a wrist bone. Mostly, I avoid them because of another problem that makes them difficult and awkward and risks making injury worse: DuPuytren's contracture, a hereditary thing (man did I throw boxcars in the genetic crapshoot of life). I'm trying to keep my hands from ending up like this:

So, I have to do them with my hands cupped, rather than flat, and with my wrists at odd angles, with a cushion under the heels of the hands. In order to get the most benefit with the least time spent doing them, I do them in a decline position, with my feet elevated. I did one before my left elbow swung 270 degrees (Hypermobile joints. Really. Genetic freak, through and through) and I lost my balance, falling on my face.

That's right, I did one.

And birds fell out of the sky in Arkansas. I say the two are related - they're about as common.