faster with age

     11 miles this morning. It had just quit raining and looked like it might rain some more so I took a light jacket but it never rained again and it spent nearly the whole run tied around my waist. Everything felt pretty good this morning so if I can make it through this week [which will be my peak before TOU] I should be able to get to the start line healthy. Kept the pace easy at 8:16 AP.

     I took the same 30 mile route on my mt bike. My garmin is dieing. 10 miles into my ride it said my average speed was 1250 MPH. I'm amazed it goes that high but I think it was slightly off.

     Went over to Weston Canyon this morning to get in some mostly downhill miles. I ran a mostly uphill warm up mile in 7:52 then started the 3 mile downhill section. I averaged 6:45 pace on this section then drove back to the top and ran it again averaging 6:44 pace. Then I ran back up but as soon as I started my left hamstring started feeling a little tight. I have never had an injury in my left hamstring but it felt tight after running on Monday. It felt about the same until I passed the second mile. I had been planning to run back down the canyon [where I had a bike hidden] but with a mile to go running up the canyon, I decided I'd better quit once I got to the top. After another .3 it was getting worse and I decided to walk the last .6. It actually got worse while I was walking but I had to get back to the car. After I'd been home a couple of hours it was feeling pretty good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I averaged 7:54 on the 2.3 miles up the canyon keeping my heartrate around the same as the downhill.

     I wasn't sure if I would be able to run today after my hamstring problem yesterday. It felt fine today as if nothing had ever happened. Not sure what it was. It was like the muscle just tightened in a knot. I went 9 miles today at 8:13 AP.

     AM 25 miles on the mountain bike.

     PM 3 slow miles.

     Got in my last long run this morning. I went 23 miles and didn't feel to bad [considering the distance]. I took 10 or 11 breaks of 1 or 2 minutes each along the way at water stashes I had made or just at nice shady spots. On 3 of the last 6 miles I ran 7:06 to 7:12 and counted these as marathon pace. That's probably about the best pace I could expect after mile 20 in the marathon this year. Overall pace was 7:31.