faster with age

    Wow! I seam to be making some faster progress. Finally! This morning I decided to try going 10 miles taking it easy. I finally got to run my favorite route again up past the reservoir where I'm running on dirt road and have some hills. I kept the pace around 8:45 and resisted the temptation to run faster. I took a 4 min. break at mile 3, 6, and 9. After the break at mile 9 I felt good enough to go ahead and run a little extra for a total of 12 miles [ which is nearly all I've been able to run in a whole week lately]. My hamstring felt pretty good. Still had that slight burn in the butt cheek but it seams to be less noticable. The lower part of my hamstring only complained a bit when I tried speeding up a bit on a steeper downhill part and also when I got to the last couple miles I started to get a bit of a tight sensation that went down the back of my hamstring and even the back of my knee and upper calf. It felt a bit like a tightness from swelling but didn't look swollen. It all went away a bit after I finished running so things are looking much better for getting in a good run or two before SGM. I know there is still a lot of healing to be done because I still get a lot of pain from certain simple motions but luckily running slow isn't one of them now. Overall pace was 8:43. I also went for 20 on my mt. bike.

     This morning I did 55 miles on the mt. bike. I took the same basic route I did last week on my 50 miler up to Thatcher and then down the Onieda Narrows. I went farther up past Thatcher this time to give me the extra 5, so 36 miles were on dirt, 19 on pavement. I had a north wind blowing this morning and since my first 25 miles is basically north I had a headwind all that way not to mention the first 16 has a lot of climbing. When I turned around at Thatcher I had about 4 miles of tailwind but when I entered the Narrows it got calm. By the time I came out the other end of the Narrows the wind had changed and was coming from the south so other than that 4 miles I had either headwind or no wind the entire ride. I averaged 15.5 MPH which is the same as last weeks ride but I worked a lot harder this time because of the wind.. With the sudden buildup in bike miles since my injury my quads have been complaining a bit even on some easy rides. Today I was feeling a bit beat from around mile 25 to 40 but I seemed to get more energy the last 10 to 15 and finished quite strong and felt good afterward.

    I watched some of the LOTOJA riders come through town Saturday and have to admire them going 205 miles. I know this morning another 150 didn't sound to good. Maybe I'm crazy but I'd like to try it some day.

    My ride took 3:30. That makes two days in a row doing 3 hours or more. Cardio wise I should be ready for St George. The question is weather my hamstring will allow me to get in some downhill and marathon paced miles and at least one 20 miler in the next 3 weeks. I had some sore muscles after yesterdays 12 mile run which reminds me how much I've lost the last 5 weeks. Fortunately my hamy seemed ok afterward. I plan to start tapering from the bike miles as I increase my running miles over the next 3 1/2 weeks. I feel like I've got to risk pushing it a bit because if I play it safe I won't be ready to run SGM anyway.

    This morning I decided to run some hills. I ran 1 1/2 miles and then ran up and down a 1 mile long 6% grade  3 times. I wasn't trying to push it at all just give an even effort up and down. I averaged 7:22 on the 3 downhill miles and 9:01 on the 3 uphill for an ave pace of 8:12 on the 6 miles up and down the hill.  I did work a little harder on the uphill. My hamy felt pretty good just some slight discomfort. My right calf muscle was sore after mondays 12 miler and it tightened up a bit the last couple of miles. At 8 miles it tightened up bad enough that I decided to walk the last 1/2 mile home and not risk making it worse. I really can't afford to deal with another problem right now. I went for 15 miles on the mt. bike.

    My calf muscle is still sore today so this morning I ran a real easy 2.6 miles at 9:54 pace to see if it would loosen up at all. It didn't seem to help but didn't make it any worse either. I'm hoping to do a 16 or 17 mile run at a very very easy pace Saturday. I'm more worried that the calf might stop me than my hamstring.

    I went a little over 30 miles on the mt. bike in 2 hours. My legs must be getting used to the higher bike mileage. They don't seem to be complaining as much as last week. Climbed to the top of the pass on the way to Thatcher again. My calf actually felt a little better after the ride.

    PM ran 1.5 easy

    I still have a sore calf muscle so I decided to not run today. As of now it looks like I better not do my long run tomorrow unless this gets feeling better quickly. This seems kind of crazy. The only time I've had lingering calf pain like this was after my two marathons and it took a few days to go away. 

     Did a 20 mile mountain bike ride.

    I wasn't sure what to expect today. I wanted to do a long run hopfully 16 or 17 miles. My hamstring has been allowing me to run [ as long as it's not to fast] but my calf has been a problem since mondays run and worse after wed. run. I decided to just run real easy and stop at the first sign of a problem and put it off till next week if I had to. I decided to take 1 min. walk breaks every 1/2 mile and take a 10 min. break about every 5 miles. I figured I could get in more miles that way and recover faster. I went 4 miles before my first break which turned into a 1 hour break [after getting side tracked] so really a seperate run. Then I took 10 min breaks at miles 9 and 14 and a 5 min break at mile 18. I felt as good at 18 as I did at 14 so I ran another 2 to make it 20. I ran for 3:10 at 9:25 pace [ not counting the 4 breaks] I figure I lose 1 min. per mile walking so my actual running pace was probably around 8:25. I may have been dumb to do this but I feel fine now. After nearly 5 weeks of next to no running, I went from 4 miles [ with a break in the middle] a week ago monday  to 5 wed. [with break] then 7 fri. then 12 this mon. then 8 wed. to 20 today. If I can get through that without injury I'll be amazed. But with the marathon in 3 weeks I've only got 2 weeks to get in some good runs. Gotta risk it a little I guess. I was running 70 a week just before the injury so hopfully thats not all gone. My calf was slightly sore but never got any worse maybe even felt better at the end. Hammy had a bit of a burn going about like normal. It got a little worse at the end but felt fine after I quit.