A clydesdale no more!

Incredibly busy morning at work.  Didn't take a breath until 1:00 so considered skipping the run.  It was too hot, my legs are still tired from Saturday, I leave at 3:00 so would basically finish up before leaving for the day.  Always easy to find excuses not to run.  Convinced myself that I would feel a lot better about myself if I went out for a run.  It was too hot and my legs were still tired from Saturday but I'm glad I went. Felt very heavy while running.  Most likely due to fatigued legs not having enough power.  I don't wear watches on recovery days but the pace was probably around 8:20-8:30. 

AM - 7.7 miles

Starting to shift to the morning runs now that it is warming up.  Problem is that it isn't warming up.  It was still quite cold and there were a few snow flurries while running.  1.5 miles into the run, mine and Becky's paths crossed.  She was putting in a few miles after her cross fit class so I ran a little over a mile with her.  Wasn't quite sure how many miles I wanted to run this morning so I just headed up to Orchard Drive and did my standard loop.  Legs still a little tired and I had some tibial soreness.

PM - 2 miles

There is a strength and toning class taught at my work every Wednesday that I have come to enjoy.  Not an overly hard workout but just enough to work some different muscles.  After the class I hit the treadmill just for fun.  Started at 7.5 mph and progressed to 11 mph to see how the pace felt.  9 mph was fast but felt good, 10 mph was a push but sustainable.  Biomechanically, I'm not sure my body could handle 11 mph for very long right now. 

Yesterday's bonus miles ended up being a mistake.  I didn't need the extra miles, the treadmill always causes problems for me and the pace was outside of where I should be running.  From my hip down to my ankle on my right side were bother me today.  I could tell while I was on the treamill yesterday that my right leg wasn't moving as well as the left.  Probably a muscle imbalance.

Took it slow today.  Just enjoyed being outside in perfect weather while I should have been working. 

Had a great time pacing the 2 hour group at the Dino Half with Becky.  This is the first time that we have paced together and it went very well.  We work well together because she is a great cheerleader and I excel at being a task master. 

It's a small race (200 racers) so pacing the 2 hour group gave us the best crowd.  For the first half of the race we had about 10 runners around us including a 10 year old girl that was running her 4th half marathon.  We also ran with Tara who we found out was friends with Don and Adrian who I have paced a few races with.  The running world is such a small world.  We started out a little ahead of our targeted pace because the first 2 miles are steeper downhill than we expected.  We settled into a good pace and maintained a 30 second cushion for the first half of the race.  To spice things up, they added a Sprintasaurus award for the fastest half mile from 6.2 to 6.7.  As we approached it, we let our runners know that we were going to run it a little faster to help them push.  We started out at a decent pace.  I pushed a little harder to catch the runners ahead.  Half way into it, I caught up to Tara and ran along side of her to help her push to the end.  She ended up winning the Sprintasaurus Queen award.  After that, we took a little walking break to get back on pace.  The herd thinned out a little bit for the rest of the race.  We had a guy that was recovering from injury and hadn't run in a month and another who was targeting us after starting 3 minutes after us because he was waiting in the POP line at the start.  They both stuck with us until the last mile when we told them to push ahead.  We were 20 seconds ahead of pace at the 12 mile mark so we backed off the pace and encouraged the last couple of runners that were around us.  Crossed the finish line in 1:59:57.