Polar Fitness Test

I just did a fitness test on my Polar heart rate monitor. It has been a while since I did one and my score was really high. This is a nice boost as I’m waiting for my ankle to heal. Here is a graph of my scores over time. The Polar OwnIndex score tries to estimate VO2max as explained here.

Inertia

I went to the sports doctor today. I’m scheduled for an MRI on Wednesday and then I go back to see him on Friday for the results.

I’m thinking that I’ll run in the 25k in Warda on the 21st. Then I’ll completely heal my ankle which will probably mean six weeks of cross-training. I will most likely volunteer at the Bandera race on Jan 9. Then I’ll shoot for running the 26 mile race in Rock Springs in March.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to switch my focus from weekly mileage to total calories burned. I’m not looking to lose weight, but calories burned in a stat that is kept by my watch and it is a good measure of exertion. I ended up exercising for 10 hours across 7 days burning 7,000 calories. That included a 4-hour marathon session at Life Time on a Saturday morning where I maintained a 144 BPM average heart rate. That was definitely one of my greatest athletic feats.

High Ankle Sprain

I think I have a high ankle sprain. I think I need to rest it for six weeks to fully recover. I’m going to a sports doctor on Monday, so I’ll know more after speaking with him. The last two weeks I’ve run once a week. Both times I ran my ankle hurt while running and afterwards. While resting it, it definitely began to feel better.

If I rest it for six weeks, then I should not attempt to run 31 miles on Jan 9. I could probably gut it out, but my legs would not be in shape to have a good race and I would definitely risk injuring the ankle again. Typing this feels pretty devastating.

I think that I will volunteer at the Bandera race. It will be nice to get out there. Then I’ll plan to run either a 25k or 50k in March. Joe and Joyce Prusaitis are directing a brand new race the “Nueces 50″ in March, which includes a 26.2 mile race.

I will probably wait until the last minute to register for races in the future until I am very comfortable at the distance. This might cost me a little extra money and I might not get a T-Shirt, but it will keep me from overtraining and then feeling devastated.

I have a lot of respect for people who run ultra distance trail races. There are probably a few that never experience problems, but my guess is that most everyone deals with this sort of thing.

I have achieved athletic feats in the past year that I never expected I would achieve. A few years ago I thought the days of me considering myself an athlete were long gone.

Napoleon Hill wrote that you should always look at adversity as opportunity. Adversity always deals with perspective. Currently I can’t reach my goal of running the Bandera 50k in 6 hours. But does not running that race, open other opportunities?