We leave for Logan's 2nd day of tryouts today. I think he's done well. So much of a baseball tryout is subjective, though. Not every ball is fielded cleanly. Not every hit is a hard hit. The coaches who are doing the evaulations are the High School coaches here in the city. So, they've seen a lot of baseball and should recognize, for instance, that Logan drove one into the outfield and pulled 5 hard line drives towards third yesterday, even though none of his hits were that spectacular.
This is where people do complain when their kids don't make a team, or don't get enough playing time, etc. Baseball isn't like track and field where a stop watch determines who is better. In baseball, you can't really accurately judge a player based on what you see on one day. You can make macro-level assessments: that kid is awesome. That kid is terrible. Mostly, though, the bulk of the kids in the middle aren't that different. Trends take a long time to develop. Plus, some kids naturally turn it up a notch at game-time.
Logan was that way last year. He practiced middle of the pack, but game-time, he was money. Other kids are phenomenal in practice and horrible in games. A lot of it depends on how they're managing their nerves.
In any event, I ran a couple of buckets of balls through the pitching machine, and he has plenty of time to warm up his arm before the tryout.
I just have to resign myself to whatever happens will happen. If he makes the team, he makes it. If he doesn't, he doesn't and we'll work on plan B.
Yesterday's run was a great one and very encouraging, but for the mean-time, I'm only going to do it once a week. Based on my heart-rates, I was right at Lactate Threshold / Aerobic Threshold, and those workouts should be done probably once a week for a 5 day a week runner like me.
It did take something out of me. I've been sweating pure amonia for the past 12 hours. Plus, my achilles tendons felt it. I ran 5 x 1 mile repeats in 12, 10, 12, 10, 12 minutes per mile. (Yes, I know, we'll just pretend that those aren't embarssingly slow for the moment, shall we?)
Next week, I'll see if I can do all 3 middle mile repeats at 10. Let my body adjust there.
This type of training produces the most dramatic training effects. It takes a long time to build endurance, but Lactate Threshold improves pretty remarkably and it doesn't take forever to make it happen. An improvement in LT should mean that, for instance, instead of hitting a heart-rate of upper 150s by running 10 minute miles, eventually, I won't hit that heart rate until 9s or so.
I am really looking forward to a Spring Marathon, mostly for the speed burst that happens afterwards. I did run one marathon before, and basically walked another one (at the end of an Ironman). I still regret not setting some 5Ks after that marathon to see just how fast I got. Might have stood a chance at 20:00 minutes.
In any event, 10 years older, all bets are off. I don't know how fast I'll get. I just know it'll be faster after a marathon.
Never did get in my weight and ab workout yesterday. So, I've got that to look forward to today.
It's a glorious day, though. So, I'll probably drive down to the trail to run. The weather up here is usually terrible. (Though this year has been an exception, much to the chagrin of my business.) So, I don't want to burn out on the treadmill unnecessarily.
Unfortunately, since we can't use the high school track in this town (how bogus is that?) I'll probably do all my interval work on a treadmill, though.
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