8 miles easy around Countryside. Started out really slow and a little sore, but felt a lot better after my stretching at mile 2.
I counted my cadence so I could affirm to Aaron that I run with a fast cadence. According to Barefoot Ken Bob, whom Aaron has been reading on form advice, we should have a cadence of 90 or more (180 steps per minute). So I counted for 6 second intervals and multipied by 10 to realize my cadence is between 95-100 (190-200 steps per minute).
My achilles is slowly starting to feel better each day. Very slowly though. Wish it would heal faster but what do I expect when I wont take time off? At least I have been biking a few times to try and give it a rest. Maybe I'll bike a couple of days this week in place of recovery runs. I've also been icing my achilles/calf and massaging the knots out of my calves.
I decided to register for a 4 mile race on Thanksgiving morning. Its in Fort Collins and it is sure to be SUPER fast! The last two years it has been won by Nuta Olaru, a Romanian Olympian. It usually takes faster than 5:25/mile pace to win the women's race. Men go sub 5:00 pace. I guess the race directors like to watch fast people and thats why the offer a prize purse of $800, $500, $300, $150, $50 for 1st-5th places. There are a number of elite runners who live and train in Boulder and what elite runner wouldn't go out for a nice Thanksgiving morning workout and see if they could win that kind of cash? I'm sure to be pulled to a fast time!
Good luck to all the NCAA D1 Cross Country runners at Nationals today! I was reminded by Coach Shane's wife on Facebook that today is the Championships in Terra Haute. Go BYU! | 