Positive Running

Recovery day from the Full Moon Midnight 25K.

Ran 10 miles north of the Arkansas River with Wesley.  Averaged around 8 minutes per mile, but ran miles 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 under 8-mins.  It was a warm morning at 80 - 81 degrees, and pretty humid with a dew point of 72.  I feel good to be able to run this well just a day and 1/2 after the 25K in the hills of Lake Sylvia. 

I was raised in the foothills of Colorado and have spent a lot of time hiking and running in the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah.  Based on some pretty good experience, the mountain trails of Arkansas are comparable to many of the mountain trails out west.  If you haven't been to the Ouachita and Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, it is well worth travelling to.  The differences between summer running in the Arkansas mountains versus running in the Rocky Mountains are that (a) Arkansas is much more humid, and (b) the elevation is lower so people from Rocky Mountain states have a distinct advantage since the air is much thicker here.

Ran 8 miles with Kevin and Abtin.  We started with a 3 mile warm-up.  Followed with about 1.2 miles of hill climb repeats in which we ran approx. 120 meters up a fairly steep inclined paved road.  We did 5 repeats of hard uphill running and the reversed it and did 3 repeats of hard downhill running along the same 120 meter stretch of Overlook Drive.  We ended with a 4 mile cool down run.  Kevin runs hills extremely well.  I ran the uphills at about 3/4 speed to avoid straining my old reconstructed left knee.  Abtin did great and was able to run with us since we took the warm up and cool down extremely easy.  It was a fun morning to run.  Although the temperature was 79 and the dew point was 72, it did not feel as hot as yesterday.

Easy morning run of 11-miles at a 8:30 per mile pace.  The temp was about 80 degrees and the dew point was 72 (hot and muggy).

Ran 5 miles with Josh and Abtin in the Pleasant Valley (PV) area of west Little Rock.  It was Abtin's first time running with the PV group and he was suprised that the course was so hilly.  Saw Howard at PV, but he ran at a slower pace.  But we met up with Howard at the end.  It was good to see Josh and Howard.  I really ought to run with the PV group more often, since I hadn't done that since I ran with Josh about two months ago.

5-miles is barely worth waking up at 4:20 a.m., so I drove downtown to where I work and ran 6 more miles north of the Arkansas River. But I took that easy, running at an 8:30 per mile pace like at PV.

Ran 7.5 miles north of the river. Ran 6 miles with Wesley, who ran 8.5 miles, and walked 1/2 mile.  It is getting hot in Arkansas.  Temperature this morning was 82 degrees and dew point was 71 (74% humidity).  I drank 20 oz. of Powerade and was still a bit dehydrated at the end.  Ran the first 4 miles at an 8:06 per mile pace.  Ran the second 3.5 miles at an 8:53 per mile pace.  I'll take the day off from running tomorrow and reduce my goal to 45 miles for next week. 

This is the time of year in Arkansas when morning temperatures are in the low 80s and daily high temperatures exceed 100 degrees.  This will likely continue for the next three weeks.

Took Wesley's suggestion and had a recovery day in which I did as much relaxing and as little physical exersion as possible.  That seemed to work well.

Ran 20.25 miles in just less than 4 hours of AR forest service roads from Lake Sylvia to Lake Winona and back.  This was a training run for several expeienced runners of the Arkansas Traveler 100 mile run that will be held in the first weekend of October.  Everyone had a really good time.  Wesley joined us and will probably run with this group several times between now and the Traveler, and we hope he becomes a regular member of the group on Saturday mornings.  I was pleased with my running since I did not have any leg muscle cramps and ran the final 3.7 miles in 8:01 per mile.