I only run on days that end in a "y."

I had this sharp back pain since Thursday - I think I did something while tearing out bamboo roots in our back yard.  I still managed to run Friday and Saturday - but the pain was enough to keep me awake at night.  It even hurt to breathe and expand my lungs.  I took yesterday off and thought about taking today off as well.  But I decided since the strain was not caused by running then running it would aggravate it.  I went out at lunchtime - it was sunny and hot - heat index of 94 degrees.  I managed a pace of 7:40's to 8:10's.  My theory about my back was correct, I did not make it worse, in fact, in some strange way the running helped loosen it up a bit.

Tough workout today.  I ran 4 and a half miles easy followed by hill workout.  4 sets of 1 x 200m hill, 1 x 250m hill, 1 x 320m, I ran the downs pretty fast so I did not have much recovery between sets.  I got through 3 full sets before taking a break for water and letting my HR come down a bit and then finished the last set followed by 3 x backward up the hill and 3 hill sprints (total 4 miles.)  Ran 4 miles easy to finish and a dip in the springs afterward for a nice cool down.  Counting the uphill as threshold miles.  I am walking around work now with pretty sore legs. That's a good thing in my book.

5 easy miles at lunchtime.  My quads are still a bit thrashed from yesterday.  I hope they recover by tomorrow am.

Warm and humid am.  Legs still a bit fried from the Tuesday's hill workout.  I decided to eschew the group workout this morning and do my own thing.  Dan and I were going to meet up and that did not pan out either.  So I stayed up north.  I have been wanting to get at least a couple good MGP miles on a nice long down hill to prepare for Steamtown.  I ended up running an out and back for 2 miles as warm up and then heading out down Jollyville and then 360.  360 allows a nice 2 mile down stretch and it was good getting a feel of pace vs effort.  The only problem with this route is when done with the MGP there is a 1/4 mile hill with a gradient of at least 12% waiting, followed by a lesser hill before it levels out some.  This was tough after a good effort MGP run, but excellent training nonetheless.  Overall MGP pace was 7:28. Splits: 7:30, 7:30, 7:27, 7:40, 7:17, 7:24, 7:27, .5@ 7:30.

day off - I wanted to go to a spinning class but it did not work out.  I did make it to the gym for some core work, though.

20 miles today - warm and slightly humid.  The plan was to make it through and not worry about pace too much.  We hit lots of hills.  I had my garmin stopped between miles 11 and 16 for some reason.  I practiced not stopping at any of the water stops.  I waited briefly at a couple for the runners I ran with, but skipped the last 3 - 4 stops.  I had my fuel belt on so I had my own water/cytomax.  Tried to pick up the pace on the last 4-5 miles - hit a couple 7:50's - 8:00's, the majority of the first miles were 8:20 - 8:30 pace.  Overall pleased as I am feeling pretty good right now and in the past these types of runs would wear me out completely. Strides at the end @ 5k pace followed by a dip in the springs.