Going With The Flow

AM - 5.3 miles with Fritz, Allie, James, Jake, Adam, and Adam. Cold but pleasant run with friends. I have tight hamstrings but that's about the only residual effect from yesterday. Making progress.

Plan for the next few weeks is to stay around 25 - 35 miles and start the routine of one tempo, one speed, and one long run. Very modified, meaning the the tempo will be 1-3 miles at marathon effort, the speed will be 100m strides and drills, and long run will be in the 6-8 mile range. Everything must be pain-free. Small doses for now to retrain the muscles to work appropriately and efficiently.

AM - Hit snooze on my alarm this morning and then proceeded to sleep until 7:30! That's 10.5 hours of sleep...getting back into shape must be totally wiping me out! Anyways, I quickly got ready and went out for a 2.6 mile jog before rushing into work. I was a little late but that's okay - it's Monday. Planning another short run this afternoon.

PM - 2 miles with Jake. 

Yoga in the morning then lunchtime Alter-G session - kept it easy for 4 miles at 7:30 pace and 80% bodyweight. Lots of random aches and pains still from IT band, hip, glute, hamstring, and calf...you name it. Still working out all the kinks but I'm confident they will all work themselves out in the next couple months.

AM - 2 mile warm-up then 2 mile tempo in 6:18, 6:21. Scaled back workout for my baby steps training approach post-injury. The first mile felt great and the second mile felt hard. Obviously my (lack of) aerobic conditioning is the limiting factor for now. I do love running faster  though :)

I did a 2012 Review on the Wasatch blog...took me a while to post b/c Jake was taking over the blog all last week! Very tough year of injuries but I'm finally on the upswing.

AM - I really wanted to run outside during lunch b/c it was beautiful outside with the sun shining and 50 degrees, but I finally convinced myself that I need to be smart and stick to the Alter-G plan. 4.3 miles in 30 minutes on the Alter-G treadmill at 80% bodyweight. Ran 5 minutes at 6:20 pace which aerobically felt like 7 min pace but is perfect right now as I am trying to get used to running faster without overworking all the muscles and breathing out of control. 

Woke up this morning with my psoas achy and annoying. After the run, I feel great with no annoyances. This has happened several times in the last couple weeks, and I wonder if the running is enabling the muscle to relax for the rest of the day...

AM - SNOW RUN! Really beautiful outside with all the snow. It was a tough run though...there was about 12" around our place and that's a lot of snow for running (East Millcreek won for most snow in the SLC valley and even the mountains)! Jake and I ran together for about 3 miles then I ran back home for a total of 4.6 miles. I had to take a walk break at 3.8 miles because my lower abdomen cramped up on me but made it home. Average pace 9:45 and that took a lot of effort! :) Jake has a lovely picture of me running on his blog. 

Now the drive in to work...that was not fun at all. Seriously, work isn't cancelled unless there are at least 2 FEET of snow? Geez, we got out of school/work if they even mentioned the chance of snow in Tennessee. This should be a day for building snowmen and sledding!!!

AM - Went to the Oval with the guys crew this morning. I ran 30 minutes with them on their warm-up then proceeded to do my "speedwork". For now, that just means drills and strides - high knees, butt kicks, skips, karaoke, etc then a few pick-ups. Every once in a while I jumped in on a recovery laps from the guys workout and then ran their cooldown. A fun morning, and I'm guessing I ran about 5.5 miles or so.

PM - Took out the skis and did some skinning/skiing for an hour or so above the Avenues with Amiee. I was glad that I could do this without any pain - I'll be able to do some real backcountry skiing before you know it!