Green Mountain to cap off the week. I ended up playing bump w/Josh at the YMCA for about an hour in the morning, then did yard work a bit before heading to the trailhead. By then the sun was out and it was very comfortable, probably 55 degrees. A little cloudy up there, but still nice. Ran in shirtsleeves.
I started faster than 2 weeks ago on the same run, made it to the horse camp at 20:35 (22:00 last time out). So feeling a little gassed there was understandable. But I got my wind back when I hit Beaver Dam and ran a nice, comfortable pace until the junction with Plummer. In fact, I was breezing along so well that I missed the switch to Plummer and ended up heading up Beaver Dam. It's steeper that way, but shorter, that's why I figure this run was less than 12. I was a little tired on this uphill, but then ran into a group of runnes coming down and that was energizing, ran really strong from the Gold Creek junction to the vista, rested quickly at the summit (1:00 exactly) and then headed down on Wildcat.
Started to push the pace on the way back, although around 1:12 I started feeling my left hip flexor. That's later in the run than I felt it last time, but this is an issue to keep an eye on. I definitely felt better fitness-wise over the last 40 minutes of the run than two weeks ago and was able to keep the pace up all the way through the end (ended up passing that group of runners too). I arrived at the parking lot about 7 minutes faster than last time out, and contemplated hitting the road for another few miles. But then the hip flexor pain really hit me, along with a very tight left hamstring. So I decided to play it safe (and I had played bball already today, for what that's worth). 1:39:40
This was not what I expected, miles-wise, out of the week, which I'm a little disappointed in. But I'll draw some confidence from feeling a fitness improvement compared to two weeks ago, and hopefully playing it safe helps this minor injury improve.
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