dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I felt really good during my run today, as I felt very fluid and the pace felt easy.  I did feel some tightness in my knee again near the end of the run, which is probably the only negative for the day.  Went out in 38:00 and came back in 33:03.  Total time of 1:11:03 for an estimated 10 miles that was definitely not short, but may have been just a little long.  My knee started acting up more later in the afternoon, so I am going to be watching things closely for the next few days to see what the root of the problem is.

I ran 10 miles this morning on the Los Gatos Creek Park trail in 1:11:12.  I felt good during the later part of the run, but my shins were tight during the early portions of the run.  I threw a couple of surges into the beginning of the run to help loosen up my shins (I don't know why, but it seems to help me relax and loosen up after I slow back down).

PM: My knee felt a lot better this afternoon than it did yesterday.  It still felt tight when I woke up this morning, and later on in the day, but I am becoming less concerned about it.  I ran 5 miles in the evening in 35:34.  I threw about a half mile in fast to shake out the legs a little in the evening.

I ran 10 miles this morning.  During the run I wanted to test my knee, since it is still bugging me, but it really only hurts when it is flexed, and not when it is bearing weight.  So, I ran a few short sprints, and surprisingly those really hurt.  I think that it is because I have a much higher degree of knee flexion when I sprint, and when I am accelerating.  After that I ran a hard half mile in 2:19.  The knee only hurt when I was first accelerating, but did not hurt at all once I got up to speed.  Total time for the run was 1:09:08 for 10 miles.

I ran 15 miles today all at once instead of running a double like I had originally planned, due to it being Christmas Eve and all.  I finished in 1:43:33.  Just under 8 miles into the run a guy came out of a side trail and was running just behind me.  He was speeding up to stay just behind me, and I was not in the mood to have a guy right on my tail, so I hit the gas for a mile in order to drop him.  I was surprised at how long he tried to stay with me, as he stayed on my tail for a couple hundred meters before falling back.  I finished that mile in 5:03 (2:35, 2:28).  It felt good, the first half mile felt like a solid half marathon pace.  I slowed down after that, but I never saw the guy who was tailing me, even though I turned around and back tracked a little in order to finish at a full 15 miles.

I ran easy this morning.  Nothing fast for Christmas.  Total time of 1:13:28 for 10 miles

I ran my long run this morning.  I wanted to run a tempo of some sort since my knee was feeling a lot better than it was a couple of days ago, but I did not want to run hard up or down (especially down) any nasty hills, and in the direction I was going there were a few nasty nasty hills after about 7 miles (were talking worse than ragnar nasty, but at sea level and no more than a couple hundred meters long).  So, I decided to split my tempo into two 5 mile tempo runs, hitting the first from 2-7 miles and the second in the same section of trail in reverse from 13-18 miles.  Half mile splits were marked on the trail and are as follows:  

3:00, 2:49, 2:45, 2:50, 2:48, 2:46, 2:45, 2:50, 2:57, 2:50 (28:20 total time for the first repeat).

 The first 3 miles were rolling, and the last two had more uphill in them, with the last mile run on gravel which slowed me down quite a bit.  There was also a headwind that hit me in a couple of different spots on the trail, but did not slow me down too much.

I hit approximately 10 miles in 1:04, and then started back for home.  Splits for the second 5 mile tempo are as follows:

2:47, 2:50, 2:44, 2:42, 2:46, 2:49, 2:41, 2:41, 2:42, 2:39 (27:21 total time).

As far as mile splits go, the first split of the second repeat was comparatively faster by 10 seconds than the corresponding mile split from the first repeat.  The second mile was 9 seconds faster, the third was 1 second slower, the fourth 13 seconds faster, and the fifth was 28 seconds faster.

I made it home in a total time of 2:03:45 for 20 miles.  59:45 for the last 10 miles.  This was one of the fastest 20 mile runs that I have ever done, and I was glad that I was able to get out and run fast for a while.  The effort did feel too hard at times, but I guess that is to be expected since my foot and knee have been bugging me recently, and I also have layed off of the speedwork and mileage recently due to these issues as well as getting the swine flu a little while back.  So, overall I am happy with the run.