A clydesdale no more!

AM

My quads and hamstrings are super sore.  I did not drink as much water as I should have over the past 2 days during recovery which I'm guessing is why I have gotten progressively more sore.  I'm going to jump back into Pfitz's schedule and consider last week a lost week of training.  Stressing about missed miles and trying to make up for them will do more harm than good at this point.

Maintained a relaxed pace throughout the run.  Achilles felt good for the first 2 miles then started to flare up.  I am thinking of doing something tomorrow that I never do.  There is a 15 miler on the schedule and I am going to take ibuprofen before the run.  Tell me it is not a mistake to do so.

Total time: 47:55 (7:59/mile - just snuck past the 8 minute guy)

PM

Took the kids to the Bountiful High track and ran a couple of miles while they goofed around.  Ran the straights hard and jogged the corners.  Focused on my push off when I was running hard.  I realized how lazy my natural push off is and how much work it takes to make it right.  Definitely need to be better about incorporating striders into my runs.  While doing the Achilles exercises that Trevor showed me I could feel it moving up and down in the sheath.  Kind of a strange feeling.

Have you ever done something that you knew was a bad idea while you were doing it but you continued anyway?  Now that it is over I am fine but the run itself was pretty painful.  My achilles was really driving me nuts.  I had stretches were it felt fine and other stretches were it killed me.  I am getting more accustomed to running with the discomfort so I think that it is something that I can continue to run through.

Total time: 1:59:34 (7:58/mile)

Recovery runs are being replaced with recovery days.  Do I shut it down for 2 weeks and forget about the Ogden marathon or push through hoping I miraculously heal?

YAY!!!  Considered taking another day off but thought I would give it a shot and see how things felt.  Started the run with zero pain.  It feels so good to run pain free.  After a mile I could feel a slight burn in my achilles and that continued until mile 10.  It was nice to just relax and enjoy the run without stressing about every step that I took.  After 10 it started sliding up the pain scale a little ending at a 3.  My stride was not affected but I felt like I should have stopped at 10.  My left leg has always been a little stronger than my right so I am going to take this as an opportunity to strengthen my right leg.  Thinking that I may have to adopt the T/R training plan (Teena/Rhett).  I just don't have the mental toughness to be a cross training superstar like they are.

Scheduled called for a 7 mile recovery run but I knew that would be too much strain on the achilles so I shortened it to 4.  Should have taken the day completely off.  It was pretty sore to start and got progressively worse.  Still runnable but more sore than I would have liked it to be.  It did feel good to have the legs moving.

Went to the KPT and started out with 3 easy miles.  First 2 were 8:30 then I bumped up to 8:00 so the transition to marathon pace would not be so severe.  I have a hard time dialing in marathon pace because I spend so little time running it.  I suppose that is what makes these runs so important.  I do not think that I am in peak shape yet so my target pace was anything between 6:50 and 6:59.  The plan was to run 6 miles at MP then stop at the car for a drink then head out for 6 more.  Splits for the first 6 miles were: 6:56, 6:55, 6:54, 6:54, 6:55, 6:54.  First 3 took a lot of focus but then I started to get in a groove and was able to put it in cruise control.  Stopped at the car, got a drink and stripped off a layer of clothes.  Stopping after getting into a groove was a bad idea.  It took so much work to get going again.  I felt light headed and out of sorts.  There was a guy ahead of me that I used as a target which helped keep the pace honest.  He was moving pretty well and not coming back to me very quickly.  Eventually caught him after the first mile and he stayed on my heels.  He really pushed me and the next mile came in at 6:44.  Oops.  I actually felt better during this mile than any other mile during the run.  Amazing what a little competition will do.  He turned off and I was on my own for the next 4 miles.  The 11th mile was very hard.  There were a few times where I wanted to quit.  My legs even involuntarily stopped once.  I convinced myself that these are the things that I need to push through and use the experience to learn how to push myself.  Pushed the pace on the last mile and finished well.  Splits for the last 6 were: 6:58, 6:44, 6:57, 6:55, 6:55, 6:46.  A good learning experience to discover that when you feel like you are done, you still have a few miles left in the tank.  It was way too much work for an MP run but it felt good to put in a solid effort.  The achilles only burned slightly during the run which probably had more to do with the Motrin than anything else. 

Total Time: 1:47:43 (7:11/mile)