dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

No running today.  I have some sort of stomach bug, and I didn't feel so good this morning.  I felt better by the afternoon and I wanted to run a few miles just to get my legs moving, but I just didn't have time.  I was super antsy by the end of the day.

I ran to school this morning pushing the running stroller with Anita, because Kimia had a doctor's appointment to get her thyroid checked.  It ends up that when she got to the appointment they decided to do an ultrasound instead and she found out the gender of the new baby without me being there.  So, we are having a boy this time around.  I am excited, although I am just a little bit disappointed that I didn't get to be there.

I ran to school with the stroller in 1:05:03.  I didn't really push the pace at all, and luckily the wind wasn't too bad.  After I got to school I also ran from the lab to the institute class that I take on Tuesday mornings so that I wouldn't be late.  I will give myself another half mile for that (although I know it was a bit farther I don't have it measured).

PM:  I ran home from school in 1:04:50.  I ran a few strides on the way home.

I ran to school this morning, and I ran 3 x 1 mile repeats on the way to school with about 1 mile recovery in between repeats.  The first repeat was run into a headwind and I finished in 5:25.  The second repeat felt like there was very little wind (so I probably had a tailwind) and I finished it in 5:05.  The third repeat had headwind again, but not as strong as during the first mile, and I finished in 5:19.  I didn't feel as smooth or relaxed on the third repeat as I did on the first two.

I was massaging my leg again this morning, and I noticed that the point tenderness on the bone is gone now.  There is still a nagging ache in my leg at times when I am running, but the pain is not there when I press on the bone, which is positive.

PM:  I ran home from school.  8.6 miles in 55:58.  There was a really strong wind out this evening.  On the plus side, the wind was at my back for 5+ miles of the run.  On the negative side, the wind was in my face for about 3.5 miles.  I was in kind of a competitive mood, so I decided to show the wind who was boss, and I pushed the pace faster than I should have during the really windy sections.  When the wind was at my back I was still putting in about a 7:00 effort (although with the wind and downhill I was averaging in the 6:20's the last 4 miles).  I was really pretty tired in the evening, so I went to bed earlier than normal.

My leg was bugging me this morning.  I think that I pushed it too hard on my runs yesterday, as I ran mile repeats in the morning, and I didn't allow myself to recover in the evening by running too hard against the wind.  Mainly I think that I was just tired, but as a result my leg hurt.  Total time of 1:14:48 for 10 miles.

I realized yesterday afternoon that part of the reason I was feeling like I hadn't recovered properly from Wednesday's runs was because I was actually still sick.  I guess that I had held off whatever bug it was well enough to log a good number of miles on Tue and Wed, but by Thurs it started to catch up with me.  Because of this I scratched the evening run (5 miles) I had planned on doing.  I went to bed early again last night (8:30pm) and I slept in until 7:30am this morning.  I did get up for about a half hour during the night because Anita was screaming (had a rash that her wet diaper didn't agree with) but otherwise I slept pretty well.

When I started my run this morning I was feeling a lot better than I was yesterday, and I cruised through the first few miles a lot faster than yesterday.  However, after about 4.5 miles or so I started to feel like I had no energy and I slogged through the last part of my run pretty slowly to finish 10 miles with a total time of 1:16:05.  So, obviously I am still a little sick, but at least I got a run in.

Long run today.  As I have not been feeling well, I decided to just run and figure out how far I would go once I had been out for a little while.  I figured that I would run a minimum of 15 miles even if I wasn't feeling good, and possibly as many as 20 if I felt great.  I ran out to sunset park, and decided to run a loop of the park hard just to make sure that I would still get a little speed work in even if I started feeling bad.  The wind was pretty strong again (similar to Wednesday, but maybe a little bit weaker).  The wind was significantly stronger than the last time I ran a tempo run here, but for some reason I think that the net effect on me was less as the wind was blowing in a different direction and it slowed me down less in relation to how much it helped me.  Anyhow, I ran the 2.7 mile loop in 14:10 (just under 5:15 average), which made me happy as I was just shooting for a 14:24 (5:20 average).  I then ran two more loops of the park easy.  I started to feel like I was still kind of sick around 10 miles into the run so I decided to run home after the second of the two easy loops around the park.  I still wanted to run some more mileage fast before finishing, so I ran three miles hard followed by one last mile easy.  The wind was against me for only 1:05 of the last 3 miles, followed by a strong tailwind for the rest of it.  I finished the 3 miles in 15:02 with a mile split of 4:55 in the middle of it.  Even though I wasn't feeling 100% prior to the tempo, the wind (plus a mild downhill) really helped.  I made it home to finish 17.3 miles in 1:51:38.