This week, I was reminded the importance of warming-up. You’ve heard it before, warming-up prepares the body for physical activity, gets the blood pumping and can help prevent injury. For me, warming up is paramount to getting my ankle ready for activity that it’s definitely not ready for/used to.
I should have smiled for the photo — I AM that person taking a photo of themselves in the gym after all.
For any run or ride, I always do my ankle balance/strength exercise, followed by either walking briskly for five minutes of the treadmill, easy pedaling for 10 minutes on the bike or 15 to 30 minutes of flexibility-focused yoga with my new best friend: my Yoga Studio app. After these warm-ups, I can absolutely telly the difference in my ankle’s range of motion. It’s not to my good ankle’s level, but I’m definitely in a better place for activity. Speaking of which, here’s a look at my slow-but-sure IMCDA Week 2 training:
Week 2
Monday, 1/21: Swim
1,400 yards, with the entire main set using the buoy. At least my pull buoy
Tuesday, 1/22: Indoor Ride
50 sweaty minutes on the trainer, but guess what… SMASH is coming back! Ah yes, the ridiculous show that kept me company on all of last season’s training rides. Oh Katherine McPhee… I can’t wait until we ride together again.
Tuesday was also when my ankle decided to be a biatch again. Like pain going down the stairs, biatch. Trying to be safe, I pushed out all of my runs until later in the week as the pain went down each day. I have a feeling that going for my second outdoor run and my longest run yet may be the culprit here.
Wednesday, 1/23: Swim & Yoga
More time soaking up the sweet saline pool at Club Sport (hello underwater speakers!) and a bit more time getting with the Yoga Studio app. I’ve been alternating back and forth between the flexibility and balance classes: flexibility to loosen things up and balance to get the neuromuscular strength back in the ankle.
Thursday, 1/24: Indoor Ride & Run
50 minutes on the sweaty trainer and then back on the treadmill to see how the cranky ankle was doing. I was uber-nervous on the treadmill as it was stilly being a pain, but I managed to warm it up enough and get my run in.
This was also the first “Oh dear God did I sign up too soon?!?!” melt-down I had with my coach. He assured me that I’m going to have my highs and lows, and yes, it will take time. But we need to listen to my body, communicate a lot, and it will all be ok. Oh the mental mind-games of training.
Friday, 1/25: Yoga, Run & Strength
A little pre-run yoga to warm-up, and then another outdoor run where I ended up taking the same fateful road. F-YOU MANHOLE COVER!
Later that day, it was time for some lower body and core work. It sounds like a lot, but with the small increments that I’m doing, it was totally manageable. Chicken Face and I even managed to make it to a date night. SCORE!
Saturday, 1/26: Long Ride
An hour and 15 minutes on the trainer is a lot indoors. With Chicken Face insisting that we watch Gold Rush (ugh), I struggled maintaining my zeal. Lola and I later made our way downtown to look at overpriced vegetables at the farmer’s market — it was delightful.
But later that night, the amazingness that was the gut bomb above happened. It was dreadfully unhealthy but amazingly delicious.
Sunday, 1/27: Yoga & Long Run
Hmmm…I wonder why I felt like a sloth on this run? Oh wait. See photo from Saturday (still worth it).
I warmed-up with yoga then went for my longest run yet, 4.7 miles, outside and it was much better than the runs earlier in the week. Still working on my fitness and still not trying to freak out at every twinge, but it was a step in the right direction.
I closed out week 2 with:
7 hours and 9 minutes of training:
2,875 yards swimming
46 miles cycling
10.21 miles running
30 minutes strength
1 hour and 15 minutes of yoga
Do you regularly warm-up? If so, what do they consist of?
Happy Running!
I never used to warm up.
In my old age, however, I do several hip mobility drills and some foam rolling/tennis ball massage before I hit the road. That has made all the difference!
We all start out thinking we’re invincible and we don’t need to warm-up/stretch, then sadly we all learn the lesson
When I joined my running group a couple years ago they taught us a dynamic stretch warm-up that I try to do before each run – sometimes I fail and just end up warming up during the first 1-2 miles of my run. But basically the warm-up involves things like squats, lunges while raising arms overhead, alternating toe touches, etc. Sometimes I do jumping jacks or marching in my living room before a chilly morning run, mostly to help me get warm before I go int o the cold!
Oh! Oh! I see a “dynamic warm-up” blog post in your future
Congrats for getting back into official training mode AND for facing that manhole cover again!!
Thank you, Meagan!!
Awesome work Page! You must have been sooo nervous revisiting the scene of the ankle sprain
Good for you for conquering your fears. Keep up the great work and keep rocking out with that pink pull buoy 
Just channeling my inner swim-Kim stud!
Before a ride I like to do some core/abs/back and open the hips (basically lots of pilates moves) exercises. Before a run I like to do some dynamic stretching.
Those pesky hips — they’ll get ya every time!
I’m pretty impressed that you’re able to balance on one foot on the bosu ball (bosu ball?) WHILE taking a photo. Now that’s some skill.
Don’t be too impressed, I’m sure I fell shortly after
My warm up involves jumping around anxiously while waiting for my Garmin to get signal. I try to take my first mile-ish a little easier, but that’s about it…
Glad it’s going well for you & you had a pretty good week!
I warm up for races & harder runs by running an easy mile or two & do some dynamic stretching before speed work, but on easy runs I find that my first mile just tends to be slow. So that’s kind of like a warm up, right?
LOVING the new look of the site girl!!! So glad your training is still going well and the ankle is holding up. I just wanted to say hola roomie
HOLLLLLLA! And thank you