All it takes is all you've got

7 miles in 7:31 pace

Legs felt pretty sluggish from the trip.  Did 7X50 stride pick-ups to work out the stiffness. 

A.M. 4 miles in 7:53 pace

My left achilles has been a little tight for about a week now and is not getting better fast enough, so I scheduled an appointment to get some ART done on it tomorrow.  That should be fun. 

P.M. Met my team at Potts Field for some intervals on the Boulder Creek Path

20 minute warm up, stretching, strides

3 X Mile in 10K pace (I probably went a little too hard)

My watch is usually pretty accurate at measuring distance but tonight it seemed to be off.  My splits based on the Creek Path mile markers were 5:41, 5:32, 5:35 but my watch says I ran shorter than a mile each time with my paces being 5:47, 5:37, 5:45.  Regardless of which one is more accurate, I felt great, which was confidence building.  I think I'll shoot for 5:50 pace in the Bolder Boulder, which will put me at a low 36 minute time.  

There were a TON of runners out on the Creek Path tonight.   I could almost read their minds..."Uh oh, the Bolder Boulder is only 6 days away...guess I better go running!"

A.M. 7 miles in 7:48 pace

Legs are pretty sore.  Went to see Richey for some ART this afternoon and he worked my left quad and achilles really deep first with Active Release Technique and then with his Graston tools.  Now I have all sorts of splotchy bruising all the way up my quad and on my lower calf.  Beauty.

P.M. 4 miles in 7:45 pace

Achilles is already starting to loosen up, but still sore.

Lifted weights and mixed in 3X10 pull ups, 3X20 push ups and 3X50 sit ups.   

10 miles in 7:48 pace

It was unusually hard to pull myself out of bed at 6 a.m. and it took me about 5 miles to warm up, but the good news is my achilles and quad are starting to feel better after all that work I had done on them yesterday.  Hopefully I can get a nap in today.

8.5 miles in 7:38 pace

Legs feeling pretty good.  Aaron and I went on a fun date in Boulder last night.  Went to dinner at The Mediterranean (highly recommended delicious restaurant) and hiked Mt. Sanitas (nice little 3 mile loop).  Mt. Sanitas is a pretty rocky climb for the first mile up and second mile down, then we ended up running the last mile or so down the smooth (but pretty steep) path. Super fun date; way better than the boring old dinner and a movie idea.

5.5 miles in 7:38 pace

Met my group in Boulder and noticed that Coach Darren was having his Striders group meet at the same time and location as us and he had planned for a guest speaker to come after our run to motivate us for Bolder Boulder.

As we were gathering and getting ready to run, fellow blogger Scott Ensign came up to me and introduced himself.  He was there with his brother, David who runs with the Striders group.  I told Scott to come run with our group since we are a little faster, so he joined in.  It was nice to meet him in person; he is very friendly and keeps the conversation interesting.

We did a 15 minute warm-up, stretching, 4X25 second strides

Then 5X2 minutes at 10K pace (mine were in 5:41, 5:25, 5:40, 5:35, 5:42 pace)

A short 15 minute cool-down and we were back at the meeting spot for some liquid, stretching, and a little Q&A with pro-runner Renee Metivier Baillie, who is running for team USA in the pro start of the Bolder Boulder on Monday.  I sat with Scott and met his brother, David, who shared the article he had written about the Bolder Boulder for the Daily Camera (local newspaper). 

Afterwards, I had a busy day going to two different birthday parties for friend's kids.  Eating cake twice in one day probably wasn't my best pre-race diet plan, but its in the past now.  ;)