Elite Jogging For Dummies

Pipeline trail in Millcreek Canyon with most of the Radda crew.  Easy, easy, easy.  Beautiful morning, very warm. 

St. Mary's loop.  Legs felt fresh and the miles were easy and smooth.  Just a gorgeous morning.  However, when I got home, I got the same knotting/cramping pain in my left quad that I previously had in the right quad a couple of weeks ago.  I was able to massage out the right side over a couple of days, and will try to do the same with this one.  

Workout with the Black Sheep at the East High track (or the U track on East's campus, as Mike Kirk would note).  Started with 1 mile warmup on the road, which included two hill repeats in the middle of it that were steep and hard. Then to the track. John Straley was coaching today and he had a relay planned. We ran a 800m to determine the teams, pairing slower runners with faster runners based on finishing order in the 800m. The relay involved the first team member running  600m, and passing off the other team member, who would then run 600m.  While the other one was doing the interval, the other would jog 200m to the exchange point.  We did this five times, so 5  x 600m.  I kept my splits based on the first 400m and the second 200m, which were all 72-73 and 37-40, respectively. Marilee and I came in second and it was fun.  Then 6 x 400m with a progressive pace at each 100m, so the first 100m was easy, the last 100m was close to 95%mhr or so.  Then some cool down miles.  Special guest appearance from Darrell Phippen today and he was strong, particularly on the last 100m of the last intervals; good kick speed.

Three miles into the run, I stopped to stretch because my SI joint on the right side was acting up just a little bit. In the process of leaning over and stretching, with my right stretched out onto a fire hydrant, I suddenly felt a very strange sensation on the left side of my lower back, like muscles that shouldn't be touching one another were suddenly best buddies.  I knew this was not good.  When I put my foot back on the ground and tried to stand up straight, I couldn't.  I tried again, and with real effort, stood up straight. Ok, I'll just stretch it out a little, right? Nope. I hobbled three miles home, knowing I wouldn't be running for a few days.

No running, back troubles. And also a cold that came on over night.  Chiro visits not helping much.

No running, back troubles and a cold.  Slightly less discomfort in the low back. Ice helps most.  The big internal debate is what I might do in the Law Day Run

Law Day Run 5k. Knowing that this race was coming up today has made this week much more challenging. For most, this would just be a little 5k that could be skipped without consequence. It's a little different for me. See, this race has a "Speed Team" division that includes a team of 5 runners, at least 2 of them women. Total times from the runners are added together to get a team score. My law firm, Manning Curtis Bradshaw and Bednar, has won the Speed Team trophy (which is a very nice glass traveling trophy) every year since 1998. I have been on those teams since 2001. In the last several years, the role of recruiting the team has been my responsibility. I draw from the talent pool in the Black Sheep, which includes both fast men and women. The race is about 500 people, and usually our runners perform very well. The course is fairly brutal, a long climb from the front of the law school up through the middle of campus to North Campus drive up to the golf course, south on the flat section through the golf course, and then the downhill section back to the start. The tricky part is there are many, many twists and turns along the way and it is difficult to develop and keep momentum.

Coming into the race this year, I thought I had a decent shot of running well. Last year I won the race in 17:42. Then when I threw out my back on Wednesday, I knew it would be a different story. When I woke up with a cold on Thursday, I knew it really wasn't looking good. I didn't run for a couple of days, hoping that I could give my back some time to heal, and also get over this cold. Both were still bothering me this morning.

I would typically have warmed up at least 4 or 5 miles for a 5k like this, but I thought I would be better off playing it safe with my back and only ran a mile. I think that was a mistake. I should have run longer, particularly with the first mile being uphill. I agree with John Straley that a race with an uphill start requires thorough warmup, otherwise, you just start out wasted and can't recover until its too late.

Surprisingly, the back felt ok during the warm up, just gentle "thud" feeling in the low back, no radiating pain. Things looked up slightly.

When I saw that BJ Christensen was on the scene with a speedy looking buddy, I knew it would be a much different race. I would like to think I could give BJ a chase on the best day, but this was not the best day. When he told me he was running on a speed team for the Paralegal Division, the team trophy race looked more interesting too.

I recruited two teams for this year: Josh Steffen, Mark Holland, Megan Call, Aimee Larkin, and I were the first team. Sam, Casey, Kim, Lindsey and John Straley were the second team. CORRECTION: Sam was on the First team, Mark Holland was on the second team. 

I didn't know the othe runners on BJ's team. I think they were Westminster runners.

From the start of the race, I just couldn't get it going, and had a nasty anaerobic feeling through the first mile. My energy level was just dismal. It wasn't my back that was hurting, it was my low energy from the cold (and lack of warm up). BJ and friend were 1-2. Josh was 3rd. Another runner was 4th, I was 5th. That was the order much of the race and that's how we ended up. BJ's time was an outstanding 16:23 on this challenging course. Aimee Larkin was 1st woman, Megan was 3rd. Between the two teams, we had about 10 runners in the top 20.

I shouldn't have been racing today, but I'm glad I went out. Not just for myself, but because we did manage to win the Speed Team competition. In the end, our women made the difference. So, I get to keep my job for another year.

After enough little setbacks in the past couple of months, I thought I had finally broken through and got back on track. Now, I'm in more challenging circumstances than I was in before! At least, the back injury is not necessarily running related. A cold, I think I can endure.