faster with age

     Went out for 11 miles in the afternoon. I felt a bit slow for some reason. May have been partly because of the large lunch I ate about 30 minutes before running. AP 8:16

     10 miles. Kept it a real easy pace. AP 8:46

     5 easy miles at 8:45 ave.

     PM  Played basketball

     Did my weekly tempo run today. I have a 2 mile section of non snow covered blacktop so I just ran back and forth on that. I did 2 miles in 7:34 and 7:13. Then since the temp was around 33 deg I took off my long pants and wore shorts for the tempo. I ran the first 4 miles of the tempo at 6:41 ave. I took about a 4 min break then ran another 4 at 6:34 pace. Average for the 8 mile tempo was 6:37 overall. Average for all 10 was 6:47. I felt sluggish in the beginning. But felt surprisingly good for the rest of the run. Must have been the switch to shorts.

     My son was out of school and it was the last day of the duck hunt so we went down on the river and did a little hunting. While we were down there I slipped going down a steep part of the river bank. I didn't fall but I caught myself awkwardly and felt a little tweak in my back. The same little tweak that has meant problems several other times. It felt ok shortly afterward but gradually got worse as the day went on. I decided I had better skip my run.

     Was planning a 15 miler but my back was still a little sore. I headed out but it was not feeling good at all so I quit after 1/2 mile and decided I was doing more harm than good. It's a good thing I quit because it felt much worse after the run than it did before.