AM: I slept well last night. First time all week it felt like. Very important that I felt relaxed when I awoke so that I could run comfortably. I met Chris Pusey at Kohler's in Highland to do the workout. It was fantastic that Chris could meet up bc I do not think I could have done this on a solo effort. I have struggled to make this routine come back to me quicker than should be.
We took off and the plan was to do 7up/7down with 4-6 tempo on the way down depending on how I felt. I was more focused on the way back then the way up. The goal was just to get to the fork in the road and focus from there. On the way up, I was struggling bad. I mean my right achilles was so tight that I felt very worried something was wrong. We were not going fast at all due to my effort but I must have stopped 8 times to stretch my stupid right leg. I kept telling myself, "Dude, this is not a tough climb, get up there!" I am glad that I had Chris to run with because it was helpful to just run off of him. Anyways, made it to the fork in the road and took a break to find a secret bathroom twice and stretch really well and get a good idea of where my legs were at.
I told Chris I was going to ease into the tempo the first 1/4 mile and then go from there. My goal was to do 'comfortable for 4-6 miles" and just get my legs some turnover that they really have not had since mid Aug. Sure enough, I took off and I felt decent. I was ahead for the first 1/2 mile and then Chris caught up. He stayed with me for about 200 meters and then just took off out of nowhere. I looked at my watch to see what pace we were going and thought well this is fine for me. Chris was about 10 meters ahead of me through the first mile and increased his lead from there over the course of the tempo. I felt good until about 4 miles and then backed off to MP from HMP for mile 5. Chris ended up going about 5.5 miles of HMP tempo. He looked fantastic the whole time. Mile 2 and 3 for him were sub 5:20. He looked very smooth. It is so easy to just clip away on this aided stuff but the legs felt really comfortable and I was suprised at how good the effort felt especially with how tight my achillies felt on the way up. I was very worried I had done something again to injure myself. The weather was perfect. I was definitely fatigued after 13 miles.
Splits: (5:58, 5:31, 5:25, 5:54, backed off to 6:21)
I am pleased with the workout. Looking forward to doing some real running soon :)
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