dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I ran 8 miles today in just a little bit slower than 1:04:00.  Average HR was about 140 (maybe a little higher), with humidity around 40% (I think?).  I think that I finally figured out what was going on with my leg and back as I guessed recently that my pelvis was rotated slightly counterclockwise in the transverse plane.  Doing some tiny things to fix this problem has virtually eliminated the pain that I have been dealing with for the last 5 months.  I think that the limited activity over the last few weeks has also helped to correct the problem more quickly, as I have not been reinforcing bad habits while attempting to fix the problem.

I ran 8 miles today on the indoor track at ISU.  It was actually a little warmer than it has been, but I am sick of running all bundled up, so I ran indoors after I finished my last final exam this evening.  The plan was to alternate directions on the track so that I was not going the same way the entire time, however I did not realize that the track team had practice until 6:00 pm, so I was stuck running on the upstairs track which is slightly smaller, has sharper corners (it is essentially a square with rounded corners versus an oval), has a harder surface (mondo downstairs, concrete with a thin layer of a cheap track surface upstairs), and has fewer lanes so that I am unable to change directions and run in the outside lanes.

To top things off I got excited due to the number of people on the track (and because it finally doesn't hurt to run as my back and leg have been feeling much better lately), and when a girl almost passed me at the beginning of my run when I was still running slowly, I quickly picked up the pace and before long I was running sub 5:30 pace with a HR of approximately 180bpm.  Doing this without ever changing directions on the track mentioned above is a recipe for disaster, and before long I could feel blisters forming on the bottoms of my feet, and I could tell that my outside (right) leg was getting fatigued.  I finally slowed down after running fairly hard for about a mile and a half, settling into a pace that was just slower than 7:00/mile.  After 6 miles I was finally able to go run the last 2 miles of my run on the downstairs track, however as track practice was over I had to dodge all of the people that were playing basketball on the track (whoever thought of putting 20 basketball courts on an indoor track was completely out of their mind in my opinion, as they dominate the good track, leaving only the sub par facility to run on, while a track makes for a sub par basketball facility as well).

Total time for 8 miles was about 57:00 if I am remembering correctly, with an average HR for the run in the high 150's.

I ran 8 miles this morning.  I fly to Arizona tonight, so I get to escape the cold and run in shorts for the next few weeks after this.  Total time for the run was a little slower than 1:04:00, with an average HR around 140.  I was pretty sore after running on the indoor track last night, and my right calf was complaining quite a bit.

We arrived in Arizona last night, to a downpour, and as a result it was fairly humid today (80+ % humidity).  The high humidity today will give me an opportunity to test my theory that lower humidity will lead to higher HR while I am running, and high humidity will lead to a lower HR while running as withing the next few days the humidity should drop quite a bit.  There are no mile markers that I can find anywhere, so all distances for the next while will be approximations.  Since my HR has been so wacky lately, I am not sure that using HR to estimate distance will be effective either.

I ran for 33 minutes on the canal trail today before turning around, calling it 4 miles.  As my back and leg have finally been feeling better I could not resist speeding up during the second half of my run despite the lingering soreness from my run on Wednesday evening.  I ended up finishing the run in about 1:02:00.  Average HR was about 133 during the first half of the run, and 138-139 for the entire run.  So far I am leaning toward accepting my hypothesis that high humidity = low HR, but I will have to wait and see.

I ran about 8 miles today.  HR was in the mid 130's on average if I am remembering correctly, with humidity in the 60's, and total time a little slower than 1:04:00.