Winning Back What I Lost

Short late evening run around the neighborhood.  I slept in today to recover from yesterday's race.  I feel pretty good but for a little bit of soreness in the quads.  Typically, I take Sundays off but I've only got 4 weeks of training until Ogden and I need to take advantage of every day from here on out.  Also, I've really been interested in the discussion board topic about NOT taking a day off after a long run and the fitness benefits that can be derived therefrom.  

Easy pace w/ miles of 8:51, 8:01, 8:04, and 8:18 (.43).

Evening tempo run: 7 miles @ 7:50 pace; beautiful day for a run.  My quads were even more sore today but I didn't even notice it when I was running.  I felt like I could have gone another couple of miles but my wife was waiting for me to return and hand off the kids so she could go run w/ her girlfriends. 

Long, slow evening run: 8:35 overall pace.  Temp in the 80's when I left the house.  Warmest running weather thus far this year.  My legs felt real heavy at first.  Don't know what is up w/ that because the quad soreness was much better today than yesterday.  Eventually, I settled into a comfortable pace.  I'm listening to Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded" these days which seemed rather apropos to this evening's run.  I took a slightly different route today which brought me back to the house on Eagle Rd south of Amity.  I had forgotten just how much of that road lacks any quality shoulder to run on.  I ended up running w/ my left foot below my right foot for almost a mile.  I probably won't hit that route again unless its really early w/ no traffic. 

Evening easy run:  I had planned on doing some speed work today but after my warmup mile I developed a wicked sideache that nearly brought me to my knees.  At first, I thought I pulled an abdominal muscle but after I stopped it became clear that it was just serious case of gastrointestinal distress (i.e. gas).  Once I was able to.....errr....relieve the pressure, I settled into a really good pace w/ a couple of miles around 7:45 and nothing slower than 8:10 the rest of the way.  Overall pace= 8:25

Late evening easy run:  My wife got home from some errands after 10pm and I'm almost didn't make it for a run tonight.  Fought through the temptation to take the day off once I remembered that I wouldn't be running tomorrow in order to rest up for Saturday's 20 miler.  Very breezy conditions this evening didn't allow me to get warmed up until after the 2M mark.  Eventually, I settled into a nice 8:10-8:15 pace for the last 3M, 8:30 overall pace. 

I was going to take today off but I felt pretty good and a slight miracle occurred in that my wife didn't have any "honey do's."  Pretty windy today so it was rough going for half of the run and obviously much easier w/ the wind at my back.  6 miles @ 7:54.

Late afternoon long run:  I embarked on my longest run since late August.  I usually run an out and back to Kuna on these 20 milers but today I decided to go to Eagle and back from my home near the intersection of Victory & Eagle Rds.  I often have gastrointestinal problems on these long runs so I wanted to have more options in terms of gas stations or misc stores & restaurants to utilize if needed.  To my surprise, I had no problems.  The weather was excellent but for a stiff breeze in my face for most of the first half of my run.  Temp was in the high 50's which is near perfect.  I made concerted effort to run a nice slow and relaxed pace for the first half so that I could evaluate whether I had enough to finish strong.  It worked well and I was pleased with the fact that I ran the first half w/ an avg 8:37 mi pace and the second 10M in 8:31, including the last .94M which was a cooldown @ 9 mi pace.  Overall pace =8:34 mi.  This long run also puts me at 59+ miles this week which is a PR and very near a monthly mileage PR as well, which I should surpass easily early next week.