Tennis on Rise, Running Declining!

Last Friday night, against the opponent who beat me 6-1, 6-2 the previous week, I squeaked out a "victory" in 6-7, 7-5, then I won a tie-breaker 7-2 that we agreed on for the deciding set (both too tired for a 3rd full set).

However, I didn't run Friday night (although more than 2 hours of very physical hard-fought singles tennis felt like a reasonable workout), didn't run Saturday (did mulching/yard work in hot weather), then ran only 4.1 miles Sunday at 8:28 per mile.

This type of scenario may be continuing here for at least a couple months.............(I mean playing more tennis, not necessarily winning).

Mark

Tennis Fever!

I'm afraid I'm coming down with "tennis fever" and it's affecting my running. Last Friday I played 3 sets of tennis with a 4.0 level player, whom I have been close to or even beaten a couple times in the past. However, this was my first match of the season, and I lost handily, 6-1, 6-2. We even played a 3rd consolation set, which I lost 6-3. I was tired and sore the rest of the weekend. Saturday I didn't run, as I did some heavy yard work in the heat, and was then too tired. I ran Sunday, and my usual easy 4 miler that often is around 8:20/mile was 8:50 per mile! Then I ran Monday, but played tennis with my daughter Tuesday, was too busy last night, have a bible study tonight, and then have another tennis match scheduled for tomorrow night!

I think the problem is that tennis works different leg muscles, as much of the motion is side to side. This seems to hamper my running a bit, not to mention that every time I play tennis is a day or night that don't run (not enough time or energy for both in one day).

The good news is that I really enjoy tennis, get a good workout, sweat a lot, it's more fun than plain running. It sort of combines the endurance and speed of running with a real sport. Although my tennis skills are not always equal to my opponents, I can often come close to them or at least give them a hard match due to my running ability. I often get comments like "you've really got a set of wheels!"

So, what I'm trying to say is that you may see several tennis updates throughout the playing season, with running and racing possibly taking a back seat until September.

I'll try to get a couple photos of me trying to play tennis! I am improving, however, and I'm finally working on a legitmate second serve, which is intended to be a kick serve.

Mark

Good Job Jeff--Time To Give Some Respect to SUNY-B Running Teams

The amazing thing about Jeff Martinez is not that he ran an 8:57 3,200 as a high school senior and came to SUNY-B to run, its that when he arrived he wasn't the best runner on the cross country team. Don't believe me? Click on the title of this entry and read about it.

But maybe I shouldn't be surprised--didn't I read something recently about a SUNY-B runner breaking 4:00 in the mile? And this change isn't just going on with distance runners. SUNY-B broke 3:10 in the 1,600 meter this past season. That's a very respectable time and means that there are at least four good 400 meter runners on the team.

The article about Jeff mentions some of what the overall running program has accomplished recently and how much the program has improved over the last few years. So, I think the time has come to stop picking on the teams and saying that they are no better today than they were more than thirty years ago. SUNY-B appears to finally have some runners who are not only faster than Mark, but would probably also be able to beat Bob Daniels. Way to go Colonials! (Sorry, as sad as the Colonial was, it was still better than an imaginary Bearcat that looks like every other cartoonish unimaginative logo out there.)

Beach Running

I'm at the beach now and most of my running is likely to be on the sand. This stretch of beach is surprisingly good for running. It is quite firm, but not too abrasive. And there are a good six or seven miles of beach available. My workouts consist of both "distance" and quasi fartlek (in quasi fartlek there is walking between the runs, not jogging).

Yesterday in my first timed distance run I did two miles in 17:01. I thought that wasn't too bad when compared to how my running has been going on the track. In addition to the two miles of running I walked five miles.

Tennis or Running? That is the question!

Things are getting tough this time of year. After a decent 5:43 mile a couple weeks ago, I had a good week where I ran 27 miles, then a poor week with only 8 miles plus playing a little tennis. Then last week, I only ran 3 times for a total of 15 miles (again, very busy with real life and work), and played tennis. While playing tennis with a couple decent players, I realized how much more enjoyable tennis can be than running. Not only is it a great workout (at least when playing singles), but it is fun. Now, I won't say running isn't fun, but, well, what can I say?

My dilemma is that now that the clay court club is open, I need to play enough times to make my membership worthwhile. And on nights where I have an opportunity to play tennis, I simply don't have enough time to run, so it cuts into running and training for the mile directly.

Any advice out there???? My wife tends to lean towards me playing tennis, as it is good exercise, relaxing (so she says, but she doesn't watch me competing), and good for my health. Tennis works a few more muscles than running.

Please help! My mile time is probably suffering already!

Accidental 7:15

This morning, Dominick was kind enough to run with me even though he had already completed his workout. The result was a 7:15 mile that was totally unplanned. It was only after running the first three quarters at a decent pace that I decided to limit the distance to a mile and go for time. I believe that had it started out as a mile for time I might have been able to go under 7:00.

As I told Dominick, that was today. There is a decent chance that tomorrow I'll struggle and might not get under 8:00. It was nice to have this pleasant surprise.

My Perfect Mile

It is important to take pleasure in the small things, especially when there are no big things that are pleasing. Several weeks ago I was very excited because I ran a perfect mile. I don't recall the order of the splits but the important thing is that I ran a 7:54 mile that was composed of the following 4 quarters: 2:00, 1:59, 1:58, and 1:57. It wasn't planned--it just happened.

This mile was perfect not only because of the splits themselves, but because it was 6 seconds faster than 8 minutes. And 6 is truly a perfect number. And not only is 6 a perfect number but it is the smallest perfect number. For those who don't remember, a perfect number is one who factors, excluding the number itself, total to the number. So with 6, since the factors are 1, 2, 3, and 6, we add 1, 2, and 3 and get 6.

I think the only was to top this accomplishment will be to run a 3:54 mile comprised of the following 4 splits: 1:00, 59, 58, 57. To do this is going to take some very serious training so I better stop blogging and start running.

Nothing

Nothing is what my current training is good for. I'm not running enough to even justify setting any goals. The same is true of cycling. My running issues are at partially the result of splitting my efforts with cycling. My cycling issues have at least three parts:

1) Going on a two-week business trip kept me off any kind of bike for two weeks.

2) My finger is still hurting from when I fell awhile ago and landed face-first, and used my hand to help break the fall.

3) I had been having some minor ulnar nerve issues on my 20+ miles rides. When I did the 100+ mile ride a few weeks ago I either did some real damage, or at least messed up the ulnar nerve enough so that recovery is very slow. I have an appointment with hand specialist for late June.

Since returning from my trip about a week ago, I've just about everyday and have also ridden the excerise bike almost everyday. Monday I didn't feel too bad running and at about the half-mile point decided to try and run a "decent" time. I did a 7:44 mile. The next day I did a 7:45 mile. This coming week I hope to do some riding on a real bicycle, but will be watching how my hand feels.

It's Now or Never!

Well, our district track championships start tomorrow with prelims and finals on Friday. The top eight in each event advance to the finals. In realistic terms, Greg's high school track career could end tomorrow. Competition will be keen to advance as a good number of runners are running quality 400 times. In fact, a number of last week's league championship meets saw 400 times as low as 48.39. This was a runner who then doubled in the 800 with a 1:54 and change! It seems like this is a bumper crop year for the 400. Guys running between low 50 and 51 are all over the place. Greg ran a personal open best last week in our league meet of 52.79. This is nowhere near fast enough to get to the finals for our district. Greg remains confident he can go into the 51's tomorrow and I think he's right but he'll have to run leaving nothing behind. It will likely take this level to advance to Friday's finals.

I still believe Greg has faster times in him but at this point, I think we're dealing with the space between his ears and not the speed in his legs. While I still believe we followed a strong training program, I was expecting some lower times than where we are at this point. Looking back at the year, I'm not sure what, if anything, I would have changed in the training. It's not likely that the guys could have achieved faster 200 or 400 interval times for a sustained workout. This is not to say I'm writing off what we did. For Hudson, this was the best pre-season workup we've ever had. The reality may just be that there are a lot of fast quarter milers out there and they have more speed to play with. Having said that, I'm still confident there's an opportunity to "go low" tomorrow and am looking for the best. If nothing else, it has been a great season.