Clyde's Comeback!

9 mile morning run up past GS onto the trail and back around into Middleton. I rediscovered how fun it was running with my ipod while I was running up the trail doing the Air Guitar to Santana’s “Mother’s Daughter.” I won’t say what I was doing to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” all this while still running up the dirt trail. It was nice and I had fun, plus the weather was pure amazing. 63 degrees when I left the house. I can’t get my hopes up too early… but it would be nice if fall was moving in. Running in that kind of weather makes me actually feel like a runner again and not a Survivor trying to stay alive. I think I’m going to start my drop into the marathon. I had 100 mpw last week and I think I’ll do 90 this week and 80 the following week, and then that leaves the week of the STGM. I think I’ll do around 50 or 60 that week with the race. I can’t believe it’s coming so fast. After all the guys ran TOU last week it really woke me up that my next marathon is just around the corner. I guess I better get serious about things.

7 mile this afternoon. We had some family stuff going on tonight so I did my run around 5 p.m. Normally it would be way too hot but the temp is cooling off a little and it was pretty nice- like 95 or something at my house.

I'm pretty sore and wore out from fighting the wind and the course at the same time on Saturday. It really took it out of me. I think that will be my last 20 miler. This Saturday I will do around 17 with maybe 5 miles at temp pace. But for the most part I think I need to start resting my body up. Last weekend made two Saturdays straight that I went and pushed out 10+ miles at marathon or faster (5:20) pace last week. I need to recover. It's getting to be close to that time when you say "the hay is in the barn."

9..2 mile morning run. I felt really trashed when I first woke up and my left lower calf is hurting or the tendon I can't tell. Anyways I didn't want to go out but made myself. I wore the heart rate today just to see if anything crazy was going on. There wasn't... I had a resting HR before the run of 38 and an Avg. of 139 bpm on a 7:17 min/mile avg- for the run. I really haven't watched it too close know if I may be feeling some problems, but once I got out this morning I felt pretty good. I may just do a couple tonight and then try a tempo run in the morning. But if I'm still feeling like drama I'll for go the tempo and just do more easy miles.

4.2 miles tonight. My left calf/tendon was way sore tonight. When I stated off I was running with a limp. I ran over to the golf course and did 1.2 miles of barefoot to try and bring things back to square one. It felt good and by the time I put my shoes on the pain was gone. Then I just ran back home.

I iced it good before bed and hope to get rid of this pain that I don't know why has taken over my left leg. While running I was almost yelling out loud "Why am I hurt?" I didn't do anything that would cause an injury- the only thing that I can think of was running the course on Saturday with the tempo and fighting the wind. Who knows!

13.1 mile morning run. Well I iced my leg and took 4 IB's last night and this morning it felt a lot better. Still tender but no sharp pain. I'll just have to watch it if I do any tempo miles. This morning was nice. I did have my garmin for distance only. For pace I just tried to relax and enjoy the morning as the sun was coming up. What a nice time of year. The tempature is just amazing and around here when the weather is nice everything is nice.

4 more miles on the treadmill. I know this sounds crazy but the treadmill sounded fun tonight. Plus I knew it was only going to be short.

13.1 mile morning run today. The same run as yeasterday morning. Up to powerline over to top of Middleton trail, down to golf course then back up trail to powerline and back home. My left leg feels pretty good. I'm still a little worried to push the pace- will try it Saturday morning for a few. I just ran easy this morning. It felt a lot smoother than yeasterday but it ended up being slower 7:45 min/mile pace and today 7:57 min/mile pace. It didn't matter, I was never running against the clock. Now we take off to Moab for the rest of the weekend. I'll try and get a run in there tonight and then hook something fun up for Friday and Saturday. Saturday there is a 50 mile trail race from the mountain down to Moab. I am going to try and run the last 17-20 on Saturday morning as a training run- if the race director will let me. I think his name is Chris Martinez (anyone know him). It's called the Moiab Alpine to Slickrock 50 Mile- www.mas50.com. It looks way fun and if the STGM wasn't just around the corner I'd be really tempted to jump in the whole race. Well I'm already tempted but I know it would be a dumb move.

4 miles here in More miles around the golf course. This is the 4th year we have come here in September. Very, very nice! Good to get away from STG for a while.

7.5 mile run this morning. Went up in the canyon behind the golf course. Dirt trail run. Had to cross the stream 6 times. I only stayed dry one time out of six. That made the shoes not so lite on the way back. I hit one mile of tempo 5:22, but got sick of it with the water logged, and muddy shoes.

6 miles tonight. I'm trying to get my body out of sore mode. For the last week or so everything has hurt and running anything faster than 7 min pace feels hard. Anyways the run tonight was nice. I left the condo and ran on Sunset Dr. here in Moab. Tomorrow morning I'm doing a run up in the canyon's and will finish on some flat paved. So if I can feel good I'll hit some good tempo for five or so miles.

19.7 mile run. Well my maping skills were off just a little today. Last night I planned on doing around a 14 mile run that started with around 7-8 out on a dirt trail and then finished with around 6 on the paved road.

So around 12 miles I finally get to the paved road after climing up a steep canyon for 8.5 miles. When I got to the paved road that ran back to the condo I hit 4 miles of 5:35 min/mile pace and then slowed down to and easy 6:00 min/mile pace the last three or so. After I shut it down I was suprised to see how easy the 6 min/mile pace felt.

I was really ready to be done at the end. No water the whole run. I did have a GU that I took at mile 8 but without anything to wash it down. It was a really cool run in some of the Moab Outback, I just wish I would have had a better plan of what was going to happen. The 19.7 miles took 2:35 to do and that is with to good tempo miles at the end. The first 8-9 miles were just up, up, and up rocky trails. Most of it I was working to hit 10 min/mile pace. Kind of wore me out. Then it dropped off  a very steep and rocky road that wasn't any faster.

Like I said it was just few more than I had planned or wanted to do, but it was a fun trail run.