A clydesdale no more!

First day of school for the kids so I have to get back on schedule and start running earlier.  Ankle was a real problem this morning.  It's very sore which makes it difficult to push off effectively with my right leg.  

I'm going to run reduced mileage this week so that I can be ready for the TOU 1/2.  Tried to pick up the pace for 1 mile but there was no pep in my legs.  

I was going to go 7 or 8 but as I started the run my ankle felt pretty good.  I figured the easy run yesterday allowed it to heal a little so I decided to keep the mileage down again today.  Felt pretty good during the run.  Plan is to keep it easy for the rest of the week.

Last night's swimming lesson went really well.  Still struggle with the breathing rhythm but I am getting there.  How many days per week should I swim to continue to improve?  Is 2 days per week enough?  If I can convince my girls to sit and watch me before letting them swim I can go more but I don't think they will go for that. 

Woke up very early and couldn't go back to sleep so I was very tired during the run.  Sticking with the plan and keeping the mileage low even though it is very difficult for me to post such low mileage every day. Random thought of the day - Shakira is very strange.

This should be a fairly short race report since I only raced the first 4 miles.  I’ve felt sluggish all week and cut my mileage hoping that it would get my legs feeling snappy again.  I now know that my body needs the miles.  It doesn’t like taking it easy.  Actually felt pretty good this morning on the drive to Providence.  Got to the starting line a little later than I usually do and did a quick warm up mile.  Legs felt good and I was hoping that it was a sign of things to come.  After a 20 minute delay (during which I could have taken care of business one more time) we were off.  I hit the first mile pretty hard but felt good doing it (6:02).   Second mile (6:21) was comfortable and felt really in control.  During the 3^rd mile I started having negative thoughts.  The kind of thoughts that I usually don’t get until mile 9 or 10 of a half marathon.  This was not a good sign.  My ankle and calf were burning and I lost all pep in my legs.  Tried to push through it and ran miles 3 and 4 in 6:30 each.  At this point it seemed like I was getting passed a lot and I was being gapped by the group ahead of me.  Made the decision to just cruise to the finish and be happy with the PR I set 3 weeks ago.  Both miles 5 and 6 were 6:21 but I made a little stop during the 6^th mile which cost me 40 seconds so it was actually 7:01.  Losing the 40 seconds really convinced me that my day was over.  Funny thing is that I have run this portion of the course 4 times (marathon 3 times and ½ marathon once) and 3 of the 4 times I have had to make a pit stop at this exact point in the course.  Had the usual rush of adrenaline after the stop and ran mile 7 in 6:07.    Now the downhill portion was over and my splits got slower.  The next 3 miles were: 6:30, 6:40, 6:37.  At the 10 mile mark I thought that I would try to press the pace for the last 5k but my legs would not respond.  It was a bad time to press the pace anyway since this is where the uphill section starts.  Miles 11 and 12 were 6:49 and 7:19 (ouch).  With 1 mile to go I debated whether or not I should try to catch the 2 guys ahead of me but had a hard time convincing my legs to do it.  They slowly came back to me and I was able to catch them both.  Mile 13 was 6:32 and the last 0.1 was at 5:30 pace.  Really had to push hard the last little bit to hold off the other runner.  Got super nauseous after crossing the finish line but was able to hold my composure (if you know what I mean).  Final time was 1:26:20 and I was super, super disappointed.  Even though there was a huge contingent of bloggers I had to rush home for my girl’s soccer game.  They got killed in their game so it was not a good day for the Browning’s.  My legs are sore but I don’t think I did any more damage to my ankle.