faster with age

Gorgeous morning for a run. I'm afraid we probably won't get to many like this before it gets hot. Went for 13 miles on dirt road . Hilly route. 8:39 ave. pace.

Another perfect morning.No wind and 50 -60 deg. I did a mountain bike ride this morning on dirt roads. I was suprised how fast I was going without a lot of effort. I did an 18.6 mile loop in 1:13:18 ave. 15 mph. which was pretty good considering all the hills and loose gravel in spots.Then went another 1.5 mi. to make it an even  20. Then ran 2 mi. easy pace.

PM Ran 1 mile with my son . He is having a lot of trouble with side stiches on over half of our runs. Today he didn't eat or drink anything after school and it was worse than ever. I've had him try different breathing methods but nothing seems to help. He is getting discouraged. After that I ran 3 more miles myself with 1x100 meter strider during last mile.

Last night I started to get a pain behind my knee. I have felt it slightly a few times over the past week or two. It felt a little better this morning but I decided not to run. Intead I did a fifteen mile mt. bike ride. I didn't use cleets because the upstroke seemed to aggrivate it a little.Riding just pedaling the downstroke didn't seem to aggravate it at all. Just when my back and hamstring have stopped giving me trouble something new comes along. I sure hope it turns out to be not a big deal.

PM  I ran 1 mile with my son in 9:27. Today he ate some ice cream about 1/2 hour before we went. That seemed to help with his cramping. He felt a little of one coming on a couple of times but it never got too bad. It's still sore behind my knee mostly when I straighten it all the way. But it actually felt a little better after running. I hope to be able to run tomorrow but unless it feels real good I'll probably have to skip another run.

It's the first day of may and it's 26 deg. and snowing. Wow.

 I don't know what's going on with my the back of my knee. This kind of came out of nowhere. It hadn't ever bothered me while running. I had felt a discomfort so slight I didn't pay much attention to it a couple of times over the last couple of weeks. Tuesday night and  last night it got worse untill it was painfull to walk. It only hurts to straighten my leg. I took some ibuprofen and it got a lot better last night. This morning it was a lot better. I think I could even run on it but I decided I had better not.

PM  I ran 1 mile with my son in 9:13. My knee has been a bit sore all day when I walk but when I ran with him it didn't hurt at all. I decided to go 2 more miles in 8:30 and 7:56 and it felt great. I guess I'll see if it swells up again tonight. If it dosen't I'll try some more miles tomorrow. I'm not even sure it's a running injury. It could be from biking. I've been working more on power through the whole pedal stroke and pulling up on the pedal puts a lot of strain on this area. I did bike on both of the last two days when it got bad. I never seem to get injuries from cycling. Unless I crash. So I didn't really consider that. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

As of yesterday I didn't know if I would be running today because of my knee. After yesterdays 3 miler it felt real good. It got a little sore by bedtime but nothing like the two previous nights. It felt pretty good this morning. Slight pain when I straighten it. I decided to go ahead and run.

It was a perfect morning. Sunny with a slight wind and close to 40 deg by the time I got out. It was 22 deg. 45 minutes earlier. I never felt one thing from the knee from the time I started running. I was planning to go at about an 8:45 pace but was running about 8:20. I had been planning to do my first 3 mile tempo run in months. Then Tuesday night the knee problem hit and I figured it was out. I felt so good this morning [ probably from the last 2 days being so easy] that I decided to go for it. I haven't run hardly any miles under 8:00 min. in a long time so I figured if I could keep it close to 7:00 pace that would be great.

 After running 4 miles at 8:20 pace I started my tempo. The first mile is on dirt and gravel and climbs about 80 ft. then drops about 100 ft. I figured I'd be doing good to get 7:10 on this mile so I was suprised to see I was at 7:10 pace at halfway after all the climbing. I finished this mile in 6:42 and felt pretty good. Now I hit pavement and flat and did my next mile in 6:32 and still felt good.  This kind af got me excited to be this far ahead of expectations and I sped up and did my last mile in 6:16. That last one felt like a race effort. I finished the 3 miles in 19:36 which is a 6:31 pace. I was very pleased with this and farther along than I thought I was.

More importantly neither my knee or my hamstring gave me any problem. My back still gives me slight pains after some runs but it keeps getting better. Overall pace for 7 miles was 7:34. did one more mile cooldown after.

PM did 2 miles with my son then 1 more myself  easy pace. I haven't felt one bit of sorness from my knee since this mornings run.

This morning was another beautiful day. I ran 11 miles at an 8:40 pace. My knee hasn't felt like one thing was wrong with it since yesterdays run. It's odd that I could have as much sorness as I did tues and wed and have it completly go away while running on friday. It was like I just ran it off. Don't you wish all injuries were like that?  Later I did a bike ride with my wife and son. I ended up going about 9 mi.