Saturday, March 26th about 7 p.m

Morning heart rate 54 BPM

Weight 15 4#

I’m at 4 on my new I-MAD index.

We have a lot to talk about today.

I-MAD equals 4.  This is a new index I have created to measure the discomfort in my achilles tendon each morning so that I have a running record. The amount of discomfort that one feels upon taking the first 10 to 20 steps after getting out of bed in the morning is a very good indicator of the extent of the Achilles tendon injury.   Two years ago I had done some extreme damage to both my achilles tendons.  I could barely walk when I stepped out of bed in the morning.  It was very painful .  I would classify it as an 8 on my new scale. I visited the Rothman sports clinic in South Jersey and was prescribed six weeks of a specialized treatment and rehabilitation to  get it under control.  My obsession with it at this time is understandable.  I don’t want that to happen again.  So I created this new Index of Measurement of Achilles Discomfort.  It will be added to my training log blog each day.   On the index  0 represents no pain at all, 10 represents  unbearable  pain.  I will not be happy again  until the index is at 0.

So, with my morning heart rate steady at 54 BPM for 2 days, I decided I was ready for a workout on the beach.  There was a total cloud cover and a gentle breeze although the humidity was 94% . Preparation was lots of heat, compression sleeves and 25 minutes of warm up, walking and jogging a total of about 1.9 miles with sweats on.   Stripped down I set out on what I hoped would be a 5 mile run.  Because my achilles tendon was sending me messages of dull pain, I decided to cut it to four miles during the run.   It was a comfortable run with each mile time being faster than the previous.   Aerobics were fine thanks to Belly Breathing, and muscles were fine thanks to a day off.   By the end of the run my  tendon was not  aching at all. That is kind of a tricky message from my body I think ,  because it does not necessarily mean that things are all well.  I think that the run was probably still having a negative effect on the Achilles but,  because I was so warmed up and blood was flowing to the tendon, the pain had subsided.   It would not surprise me one bit if this was the reason why I got into so much trouble 2 years ago.   I was running through the pain to the point of no pain, and then pressing on.  Maybe I was damaging my achilles at those times.  Hopefully, I have learned a lesson there.

I immediately soaked my legs in the cold water of the pool and had a short swim.  I am not experiencing any pain as I write this post. But tomorrow morning will tell the story. I was generally pleased with the workout because I was able to drop the mile time for each segment. Here are the splits;

10:56    10:14    9 :44    9:07     I was working hard on the last mile to try and break nine minutes , but it just wasn’t there today.  All in all a pretty productive workout.

Followed up with chocolate milk, a banana,  a large salad and my cocktail of green tea, pure tart cherry juice and a spritz of lemon.

Now enjoying  a DOGFISHHEAD  60 MINUTE IPA while Villanova beats Kansas.

Bonnne Nuit

Friday ,March 25,  late evening. Today was a warm day but cloudy and occasionally stormy throughout.

I took the day off today again.  It’s that whole listen to your body plan.  Last night I stayed up till 1 a.m. because I got caught in The Bourne Identity.  It is one of the movies you can’t get out of once you get into.  But I did sleep for 11 hours not rising until noon today.  That is probably the longest sleep time I’ve had since arriving in Florida.  In a discussion with Rich Refi on the phone last night I had to admit to him and myself that had not been monitoring my heart rate each morning.   He and I both agree that this is the key predictor of when an athlete is overtraining.   As soon as I began complaining about being overtired, that was the question he asked.  My answer was no.   So, duly chastised,  I have begun today to take my puse rate  each morning when I wake up.  It will now be included with my Daily Post.  This morning it was 54 BPM.  That has been my heart rate  for all the years that I have taken it. The theory is that if an athlete’s base heart rate rises for a few days in a row, that as a sign that he is not fully recovering from his workouts. The prescription is rest. So today I made the decision to swim in the very lovely pool that is right outside our window.  It is 7 weeks that I have been looking at the pool but the water has always been too cold I thought.  Today I decided, cold or not ,  I was going to swim.   I probably swam for 20 minutes .   For the first 10 minutes I had to share the pool with a wild goose who seemed quite disturbed that I was invading his pool.  He finally flew away and I completed  my swim. So that was the extent of my workout today .  I hope that my body feels better tomorrow.   I’m anxious to get a happy run back!  The days in Florida are growing short and the weather for the next few days is predicted to be mostly rainy with storms.  I hope the spring weather is coming to New Jersey.