Recovering From Microfracture Surgery

AM - Ran the standard Sasha House 10 Miler with Sasha and Brad. We ran easy the whole way and on the way back did 8x100m strides at about 18-19 seconds with an easy jog 100m between. Just do these to feel leg turnover during the taper but not meant to be hard. Average pace of 7:31 for whole run. Felt ok considering how sick I was yesterday. I was still sick but hopefully on the upswing. I was totally wiped out on Sunday and spent most of the day in bed or on the toilet. Today just some lingering congestion so far.

PM - I bagged my planned run this evening. I was only going to do 2 miles tonight but the way I am feeling it would not have done me any good. Congestion is getting better although as I am drying up I am dealing with some sinus headaches and the body joints stsill ache a bit all day today. So better to just rest tonight and hope things feel better in the morning. I have just under two weeks to recover which is a good thing as I usually kick these things quicker than most. 

AM - Well I was feeling a bit better this morning which hopefully means I have almost kicked this illness. The plan was to do the normal 10 mile route but to throw in a 3 mile marathon pace tempo in the middle. I had to run early, 5:00am, so I was on my own which probably was a good thing anyway as I would not be tempted to push too hard while I am still trying to recover and get healthy. I decieded that I would not look at my watch at all today. I would start the watch and then just run by feel and afterwards see what the watch said. I figured this way I would not push myself too hard. I ran the first 5 miles very relaxed and easy as a warm-up and then figured I would work my way into what felt like marathon pace effort. It was tempting to want to look at the watch but I refrained from doing so until I was done with the entire 10 miles. The first mile felt a little slower than marathon pace but it was what my body wanted to do as it was very dark and cold (37'F). I held this same effort but it started to feel too easy as I went along so I focused on relaxing and trying to pick it up to something closer to marathon effort during the third mile. The third mile felt closer to marathon pace effort but still pretty relaxed and comfortable. I definetely could have gone alot faster but the goal was to keep it easy and relaxed but get something close to marathon pace at the same time. So when I stopped the watch and looked at it for the first time at the 10.1 mile mark I saw that my average pace for the entire run was 7:06. Pulling up the splits the first 5 miles was about where I would have guessed being around 7:40 pace once I got going. When I started to pick it up for the three mile section the splits were 6:23, 6:23, and 5:55. The first two were a little slower than I would have wanted but the third was a little faster than I would have guessed. It did not feel like I picked it up very much at all. This was an easier effort than I origionally planned but again that is probably good as I need to get healthy this week. I ran easy the last two miles but still did them at 6:40 pace and felt like I was jogging. I saw Sasha and Jeff right before I finished. Plan to run some more easy miles tonight as long as I am feeling ok.

PM - Added 4 miles running on grass during Jared's soccer game. 2 with James, 1/2m with Jared and rest on my own. Very easy.

AM - I have almost shaken the bug that hit me, just a little congestion remaining at this point. Only 8.2 miles this morning, all easy averaged 7:30 pace overall. I met with Sasha, Jeff and Adam at 5:00am. We ran 6 together and then I was off to BYU for physical training with ROTC and ran a couple more miles with them. I am starting to feel a lot better and am starting to fell the taper kicking in. I am feeling rested and the legs are starting to feel pretty good. As Sasha would say the horses are starting to neigh but in my case it is only one horse starting to neigh right now. Maybe next week it will be horses neighing. I will get some more miles tonight at James' cross country practice.

PM - 5 miles at James XC practice on the rolling grass. Easy run nothing exciting. We did one stride at the end.

It is looking like we have a winner for a new FastRunningBlog slogan. It seems most are really liking "Run. Blog. Improve. Repeat." and more importantly Sasha really likes it. If you have not yet checked out the discussion forum you should check it out there is some good topics going.

AM - Sasha joined me at BYU to run with the Ranger Challenge Team. I put together an 8 mile loop that would give some gentle uphill for the first 4 and then gentle down the second 4. We warmed up together as a group for the 1st mile very easy and then gave them a fartlek workout of 1 min hard(H), 1 min easy(E), 2(H), 2(E), 3(H), 3(E), 4(H), 4(E), 4(H), 4(E), 3(H), 3(E), 2(H), 2(E), 1(H), 1(E). For them the plan was for them to try and hit the hard portions at about there 1m race pace. For me I wanted to do the hard parts at about threshold pace to ge 20 minutes worth of threshold in but broken in to smaller chunks. All of the fartleks for Sasha and I were between 5:20-40 pace looking at the watch afterwards. Overall felt ok and the pace felt like threshold for the most part. I estimate we covered about 3.6 miles of threshold running. For Sasha it was not hard as it barley approached marathon pace for him. We had two cadets that were not too far behind. They run the 2 miles in about 12 minutes. I added a couple more miles afterwards. Averaged about 7:15 pace for the whole 10 miles and that was with two very slow miles. Averaged 7:00 pace for 8 of the miles. I am still dealing with the lingering effects of this cold bug. Hopefully it will be completely gone by next week! James has a XC race tonight so I will get a few more miles in tonight.

PM - 3.7 miles at James XC race on grassy rolling hills. 3K(measured 1.97 on the GPS) during race with James in 11:42. James went through the first mile in 5:50 on the grass and held on pretty good. So 2 miles at marathon pace the rest very easy.

AM - Very easy run with Sasha on the river. We did 4x100 strides just for fun. I still have some lingering cold effects but hopefully they can clear by next saturday. I'm at the point were I really do not feel like I am running very much at all even though I will be at 75 miles this week. This is a good thing.

More importantly my desire and motivation to want to put the miles and hard work in to achieve the most I possibly can in the marathon has returned. I am looking forward to some high miles this winter and am starting to feel much more optimisic about being able to exceed my previous fitness levels and PRs next year. Until recently I was not sure I would surpass where I once was but now I am confident that it will happen. I'm not sure how St. George will go but I am actually more excited about getting the miles back up after St. George. Some people might think I'm crazy but I'm actually looking forward to doing 120 mile weeks all winter and next year. The desire to train hard and go after PRs is back and that is the key ingriedient that I have been missing for awhile so I am excited.

PM - 3 easy miles with boys. I just can't wait to shake this cold for good!

Nice quote from Haile G. on his goals:

"I feel that I can achieve something outstanding in Berlin," said Gebrselassie, who increased his weekly mileage in the surroundings of Addis Ababa during the buildup to Berlin to 250km (156 miles). “To become stronger in the last part of the marathon I increased my speed in the final part of my training runs."

During much of the press conference Haile Gebrselassie remained cautious regarding a time goal. But at the end he was asked to start a marketing campaign for adidas, in which runners are asked to show their motivation for running by a drawing. Haile Gebrselassie did a line drawing, showing himself and then wrote underneath it: ‘2:03:00 – I will show you.’ Then he explained: "Well, 2:04 would be okay as well. You always have to aim high."

Interesting website: http://www.wearenotjoggers.com/home 

AM - 10.5 miles in the Provo River Canyon with Steve and son James. Sasha was sick so he did not join us. We did a 2.25 mile warm-up going up the canyon and then did the 3 mile tempo route down the canyon. We let James go with a 3:30 head start with the goal of running no slower than 7:00 pace. The plan was to run the 3 miles at about 5:45 pace or somewhere close to marathon effort. I wanted to run by how it felt. We were a little faster but the good thing is it felt like marathon pace effort at least until we picked it up the last 1/2 mile. 1st mile was 5:35 and it felt very relaxed, we had a pretty strong headwind coming down the canyon as well so it negated some of the downhill effect for sure. Tried to stay steady the 2nd mile and even though it has a small uphill stretch for about a 1/4 we hit another 5:35. With a 1/2 mile to go we started to pick it up as we could see James in the distance. We all finished at almost exactly the same time which mean James ran pretty fast. Our last mile ened up being 5:29 for a total time of 16:39 and the lst 1/2 mile was 2:41. The last 1/2 mile felt like threshold pace. Steve and I then ran back to the top and then back to the car again to end up with 10.5 miles with an average pace of 6:47 for the last 10 miles. Steve wanted to pick it up again for another mile back to the car and I felt decent so wnet along with him. We ended up running the last mile in 5:40 which felt like marathon pace effort again. So overall 4 faster miles of 5:35, 5:35, 5:29, 5:40 which all felt pretty comfortable today. I will get a couple more miles tonight with Jared. I'm glad Steve was there as it was nice to have someone to chat with for the run. Steve seems pretty fit as the pace never seemed to bother him much and he was able to carry a conversation the whole time. St. George is going to be fun seeing how well all of the bloggers run and meeting everyone at the pasta party.

PM - 2.4 in the snow, 1 mile with Jared. Wow it was 59'F for this mornings run and this afternoon it was 37'F and snowing!