faster with age

     didn't get out until later in the morning again. The temp was already up to 82 deg. I ran 9 miles and started to get a little rain about 4 miles into it. It felt pretty good but only lasted a few miles. Took it pretty easy. 8:49 AP.

     PM   Went out for a ride on my road bike. I'm in a biathlon a week from Saturday so I decided I'd better start riding my road bike. I prefer riding the mt. bike on the dirt roads and trails around here but I figured I had better get used to the different position on the road bike. This is only the 5th ride  I've taken over the past 3 weeks after not riding much all year so with one week to go I don't expect much from my cycling condition. I went 21 miles and the temp was 87 deg. It's not as bad on a bike because you create more wind. Right near the end I was coming up the mile long hill out on the highway that I like to run on. About half way up I decided to really crank and see how high I could get my heart rate. I was able to hit 160. The breeze was at my back so at the 10 or 11 MPH I was going up the hill it felt dead calm. I had a steady stream of sweat dripping off the front of my helmet and my thighs and glutes really burning by the time I topped out. Good stuff.

     About 3 miles into my run yesterday my right calf had a pain hit out of nowhere. I was hoping it would go away as quick as it came but after a couple hundred yards I stopped and stretched and massaged it a bit. It felt a little better so I kept going and just took it easy. It got feeling better so I finished the whole run. I felt it a bit throughout the rest of the day so this morning I figured I'd start my run and see how it felt. I was ready to skip the run all together if I had too but if it didn't get any worse I figured I'd just go 6 or 7 miles. In the beginning it felt about the same as yesterday but after 2 or 3 miles it was feeling a lot better so rather than turn around at 3.5 for a 7 mile run I decided to at least go the rest of the way to the reservoir which is 4 miles. By then the discomfort was pretty minimal. In fact if not for yesterday I may not of thought too much about it. I decided to just go another 1/2 mile to make it a nine mile run. By  the 4.5 turn around I was in need of a bathroom and there is a porta potty in another 1/4 mile so I ran up there and used it. Of course now it's only another 1/4 mile to the 10 mile turn around might as well make it an even 10. Overall pace was 9:03/mile. My ave heart rate was 123 which is about as low as I can remember for a run. Calf pain was nearly gone at the end.

     After yesterday I decided maybe this calf thing was gone. I had to drop my son off in town at 6:00 this morning so I wanted to do a workout at the track. I started my warmup and my calf was sore again. Not bad [maybe 1out of 10]. I decided not to risk running hard and making it worse so decided to just keep it slow again. After 3 miles on the track, I decided I didn't want to run a bunch of slow miles there so I went home and ran another 10. Calf pain was all but gone after a few miles. My hip was just getting better and now this. It seems like it's always something. It's probably not going to be a big deal but I'm planning 2 races next week [10k on Monday and biathlon on Sat] so I figured it wasn't worth the risk of straining it worse with a workout. Overall pace was 8:36.

     10 miles early while it was still nice and cool. Calf pain was minor to start and pretty much gone after about 3 miles. Kept the pace easy until the last mile in 7:08. 

     PM  Around noon I had to go into town so I took my road bike to do a ride on next weeks biathlon bike course. It was about 80 deg by now and sunny. After a 2 mile warm up, I started on the 14 mile course. I was riding hard [about tempo effort]. I messed up the cable too my rear derailleur and it ended up stuck in one gear. I could  so I basically ended up with 2 gears since the smallest gear was so low I only used it for a couple of short steep spots. I wound up pushing too big a gear for most of the ride which didn't help my time but probably gave me a good workout. At the end of the ride I quickly changed into running shoes and ran a mile in 6:17 to try and simulate the transition to running. Most biathlons do the run first but but for some reason they switched it last year. It about killed me to try and run fast after racing on the bike last year and it didn't feel too good today either. I would have never kept that pace for the full 5k and I about puked at the end. I have a hard time even walking after a hard ride. I averaged right at 20 mph on the ride

     Ran another 10 today up past the reservoir. Saw a big golden eagle. He flew out of a tree about 15 yards away made a little loop and then gave me a close fly by. Really cool. My calf seems to be good. Kept the pace easy again. Did some striders the last 2 miles. 8:24 AP.

     Ran 8 miles this morning. Ran it mostly pretty slow until the last 2 miles I did some striders. I surged from 1 telephone pole to the next then ran anywhere from the next 2 to 4 poles easy. 7th mile was 7:09 overall pace and 8th mile was 6:44 overall pace. I did them more frequently the last mile. I was going to count these as MP miles but I ran 2/3 a lot slower and 1/3 a lot faster so I took a guess. This almost seemed easier than running those paces steady. I don't think it would work that way for much longer though. 8:17 AP