Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Rest day today. Catherine and I took Tigger for a short walk on the trails behind the university this evening. My legs are pretty sore after yesterday's race.

My legs haven't been this sore for a long time. But sitting around doesn't seem to help me feel better any faster, so I went out for a short, easy run this morning before work. After about half a mile my ankles and calves loosened up enough for me to manage a legitimate running stride, and from that point all I had to worry about was how much my quads hurt. All the downhill on Saturday really did a number on me. Anyways, I expect to be feeling significantly better tomorrow and I hope to be ready for some real running no later than this weekend.  

Average pace - 8:36/mile

I bought my iPod Shuffle two years ago, and I still think it's one of the greatest inventions ever. Every time I rode my bike I clipped my Shuffle to the left side of my jersey, just above my hip. That way, I could easily reach the buttons and the headphone cable ran cleanly from the Shuffle to the center of my body and up to my ears.

When I started running, I realized that the Shuffle would bounce to much when I clipped it to my shirt, so I started clipping it to my waistband on the left side of my shorts. It was an adequate solution, but it always annoyed me that the headphone cable came out of the Shuffle away from the center of my body and therefore had to double back across the Shuffle before reaching my ears.

It took me until today to realize that the solution is to clip my Shuffle to the right side of my shorts instead of the left. Imagine that.

I had an appointment that interfered with running this morning and the wind messed up the air this evening, so I settled for some easy miles on the treadmill. My legs feel much better than they did yesterday, and I feel pretty good overall. I'm tempted to hit the trails tomorrow, but I'll probably give myself one more day to recover, although I do think I'll up the mileage tomorrow.

To and from Liberty Park, plus three laps on the cinder track. It was snowing this morning, and I was underdressed. My legs felt heavy and slow, but not sore. I'm trying to decided if that means that I need more recovery or that I need to throw in some intensity to shake my legs out.

Average pace - 8:15/mile

Last night I decided to run on the treadmill today, and when I woke up this morning I was glad I did. Stupid snow.

Anyways, I ran for one hour on the treadmill. Two 20-minute intervals at a 6:35 pace with a 5-minute jog between them. 

On Wednesday I misjudged the weather and wound up running in the snow wearing nothing more that a short-sleeve shirt and shorts. Today, I misjudged the weather again and wound up running in relatively warm temperatures wearing long pants, long sleeves, long underwear and a hat and gloves. That happens a lot in the spring.

I decided to run up the west side of City Creek, which I could tell was a bad idea from the start. I didn't feel like myself on the run up to 11th avenue, but it wasn't until I started the actual climb to the ridge that I decided to change my plans. I was going so slow on the lower climb that I knew I'd be doing too much walking up top to make it worth the effort, so I turned around and followed the singletrack further into the canyon. I'd never been on that section of trail before, but it looks like it might go a long way, so I'll have to go back and check it out sometime. It's still a climb and it's still work, but it's nothing like the climb out of the canyon.

Anyways, today's relatively short and easy run kicked my booty, so I'll probably take it easy on my long(ish) run tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just split the day into two mid-length runs.

It's conference weekend, so I Catherine and I both decided to do two shorter runs today instead of one long one. I ran 7.25 miles before the morning session and 7.35 miles before the afternoon session. All easy, because yesterday's run convinced me I still need some recovery from last weekend. And all on the treadmill, because . . . well, just because.