AM: Landfill loop in the cold (25 degrees). I felt pretty good. I am ready for another week of training. I did decide today while driving to work on my scooter that it is too cold to do that. My rule was to only drive it if it is above freezing and now I remember why. Crazy cold windchill.
T- 45:55 (6) (7:39) 152
PM: Gossner 5 with Dan in the afternoon. I was dragging a bit, but managed to survive.
AM: Providence Canyon Road in the dark. I dressed warmer today and it made me too hot. Oh well, it was easy to shed layers as I ran. I was feeling ok this morning, but didn't want to push the pace so it turned into easy miles.
T-59:31 (7:21) 8.1 miles 156 ave
PM: I wasn't invited with the girls out running so I stayed home and watched the kids. Once Beth got home I took Jax in the stroller out to the end of the planet walk and back. We got a flat tire...bummer. The Garmin worked fine for me. It must of been a "user error" problem for the girls.
AM: No time for a Big or Med workout, so it was a small workout. I ran the Providence-River Heights Loop. I started out at 6:48, 6:42, 7:06 then did the rest at tinman tempo pace. I wasn't feeling too spry so it felt closer to half marathon pace effort today. I went 6:15, 6:22, 6:22, 6:10, 6:17. I was able to out lean the 6:30 guy at the tape without even knowing I had passed him.
T-51:59 (6:30) 8 miles 168 ave
Later, I found out that I needed to catch the next flight to Minneapolis, so I spent the rest of the day traveling. I made it to my hotel by 10pm
Early AM in Mendota Heights (Minneapolis) around the hotel. I pretty much just wandered around the streets by my hotel. I was finding lots of bike lanes and huge sidewalks but no trails. That is until about mile 3 then I hit pay-dirt. A great trail that ended up starting about a 1/2 mile from my hotel. I took it for a while then ran out of time. I spent the rest of the day repairing the issues with the two LED billboards that had problems. Problems solved. I made it back to the Hotel at 11 pm.
AM: Still in Minneapolis, but I am catching a flight home at noon. Woke up today and hit the cool trail and feel in love. I ended up following it for 6.5 miles. It is basically a paved bike trail hidden out in the woods. No traffic, very few people, beautiful sights. It was endless. It seemed like it went all the way into the downtown area, but I didn't get that far. I did pass the joining of the Mississippi and the Minnesota rivers along the way. Lots of the trail was on the shores of the Mississippi. Pretty good pace, not hard, but steady. Lots of rolling hills to break it up. I did love the oxygen content at 800' elevation.
Failed Big Workout. Things started out just fine. We ran up Center Street to Dry canyon and along the Deer Fence Trail to Millville canyon. The hills were sufficiently hard. Paul was being nice though, so I was surviving. Somewhere around mile 8 my right knee started hurting. This was not a whining complaint, this hurt. I was hoping that once we hit the pavement and got away from the uneven ground it would improve, but it didn't. It felt like my leg would collapse at any moment. Weird. I ended up getting to the point where my leg would cramp up and pull so much on my knee that I just couldn't hold any kind of a pace. I told Paul to finish and I would make my way home. For a mile or so, I was able to go at 8:00 pace but it got progressively worse until I was doing more walking then running. I am a runner, not a walker so this made me frustrated and bored. I was still 3 miles from home so I did a combination of walk/jog-limp to finally get there.
My hamstrings have been really tight the last 24 hours due to running hard yesterday and then sitting either on planes, in cars, or at airports too much. Maybe that did it. Paul thinks it is my IT band as that is what is the most sore and could be causing the pain in the knee (outside of right knee). Tomorrow is rest anyway, so we will see monday how it is doing. Time to ice and stretch.
T-1:33:00 12.1 miles (7:40) 157 --This includes the slow 10:00 miles but not the walking.
