Bret

AM - 3 miles with Finn in the neighborhood.  Hamstring was feeling better yesterday - an d not so much today. 

PM - 2 miles of deep water running - I think it is helping the hamstring.

2022 Peachtree Road Race - did surprisingly reasonably well today.  Had lots of excuses and reasons not to expect to run well - had a bout with COVID in the 2 weeks leading up; frustrating proximal hamstring tendonopathy that has been more problematic in the last month than it has over the last 6 month - plus it was super humid this morning - high dew point of 71 degrees.  So I went in with the idea of just hoping to maintain 8 min pace and wasn't sure I could even manage that having most of my training run paces of 8:45 to 10 mins lately...

But things kinda worked out ok.   I did some pool running yesterday afternoon - which seems to be helping the hamstring the following day; and although it was very warm and humid today - the start at 7 am had some low cloud cover and the sun never emerged until mid morning.  

Usually my family participates in the event - but two of my girls are not in town and my other daughter would have walked it with her toddler, but they do not permit strollers.   So just my son-in-law and I did it today.  But today's race was the first time since the pandemic that they have held the race on one single day (last year was split over 2 days for social distancing) - and crowds were finally back and it seemed like things were back to normal.

Anyway - the first half mile was a little rough feeling - my legs felt terrible and I could not seem to find a groove.   But I relaxed a little and allowed myself to get acclimated - and was very pleased with a 7:20 split for the first mile.   The next two miles are downhill and I ran those both at or below 7 mins.  The second half of the race is mostly uphill - the steepest is section is between 3 and 4 miles and my pace slowed to 7:40 - but I came back with a 7:30 and then 7:07 before finishing the last .2 at 6:30 pace downhill.  My HR effort in the second half was probably more than I should have attempted - but at the time, it felt like I was not overreaching.   

My time was literally 3 second faster this year than last year when I ran "easy" with Dan; but considering my situation this year - I could not be more pleased with this result.  

PM - 1 mile of deep water running in the pool.

AM - 3 miles easy with Finn in the neighborhood.  Legs felt a bit tired as expected.

PM - 2 miles of pool running.

AM - 5 miles with Finn - on a hilly route.  Pace was quite slow.  It is very humid and warm.   Hamstring is really responding to the pool running - I am guessing it provides the proper bloodflow to the tendon to allow it to heal.  Still doing the strengthening exercise as well. 

PM - 2 miles of pool running.  

AM - 3.75 with Finn on the horsetrail roads.  Ran over to Dan's new house to check on it, as he is out of town.   Really fatigued today - perhaps too much pool running the last few days and insufficient sleep.   

AM - 5 miles on the trail - several loops around the pond.  Legs felt really fatigued again today.  Quite warm and humid and effort on the trail was not relaxing or easy despite the slow pace.  

AM - thunderstorms all morning - so 4 miles on the treadmill.

PM - had a birthday party for my grandaughter at the house today - weather cleared for a nice day at the pool.   After clean up - I did a little over a mile of deep water running.  2 days of no pool running had my hamstring starting to ache and bother me more.