Doug's Running Thingy

Felt pretty much back to normal on this easy short run this evening.  Actually dropped the middle mile down to 7:30ish and felt fine.  I think I will go ahead and just ramp straight back up to 25-28 miles for this week since my setback had nothing to do with physical injury or anything.  Will certainly pay attention to my bod and readjust as needed, but I'm psyched to get rolling again.

Good run this evening at the trails.  Did the figure 8 five miler with miles of 8:05, 7:57, 7:33, 7:33 and 7:43 - quite satisfactory.

Five miles at lunch on the bridle trails in the neighborhood.  Kept it right at 8 min pace .  Right calf and left quad a bit sore last 2 runs - interesting.  I kinda think it may have been all the squatting for shooting pics on Saturday - hmmmm.

Planned to do 6 in the neighborhood at about 8 min pace, but at one mile in I really felt no energy and no motivation to be on the roads.  I bagged the distance and pace, and circled the neighborhood at about 9 min pace - live to fight another day.  Will do my weekly trail time trial tomorrow morning - always good for a lift.

Terribly lovely morning on the trails - a bit dark to start, so I did the first mile back and forth on the power line easement.  Once it was light enough, I did another mile up to the start of the north loop and then did my time trial.  Felt really good, but didn't press particularly hard, so just under 5 minutes was fine (4:58).  Finished up another two miles easy back to the jeep.  Legs and energy level much better today.

Mid morning start to Travis' cross country race, so I went out early to the course and ran it plus a bit before the teams hit it.  Compared with the last couple years, they really dumbed it down - no single track portion and lots of asphalt to go with now having to run the big half-mile uphill section twice.  I felt totally back to normal today for the first time in a week - whew.

This was another race that coach told Trav and the team to run for place and not worry about time at all.  Worked out well for them as they won the team title by 4 points, even without their #2 runner.  Not as impressive team average or top 5 split as last week, but they all raced well.  Travis ran really well for 2nd overall at 17:06.  Definitely a pleasant surprise considering this course was tougher than last week, and the temp was starting to crank up as the gun fired at 10:45.  Most importantly, he reported that he had fun and felt great for the first time in quite a while.