Every Race is an Adventure!

I intended to run extra today since I was taking the day off for my birthday. I was going to wait and run when the sun was up but one thing led to another and I ended up not running.

It was okay though, I spent a good part of the day with my two year old granddaughter. She was born on my birthday two years ago. It was fun being together on our birthday. We took a walk around the neighborhood hand-in-hand with me telling her what different things were and her repeating what they were and telling me what color they were. She especially liked the red fire hydrant. We also sat in the grass in the front yard throwing tree fuzzies on each other and playing tag. She then went running errands with Karen and me, including the post office, clothes shopping, and grocery shopping.

Karen had made me a nice meal for my birthday on Sunday so on my real birthday on Monday I was allowed to make my first meatloaf. I think it turned out pretty good. There were no leftovers.

It was a good day. Since I ran hard on Saturday maybe an extra day of rest was good for this old body.

6 miles @ 9:53/mi. Kevin texted to say he wasn't running this morning, so rather than start on the trail by his house I headed up the Main street hill. As I turned and started up 2000 N I remembered the good old days when we would run that big hill twice a week. I grew nostalgic and decided to run it. I figured some hill miles will be good training for the Utah Valley marathon coming up in June. There's no better time to start than the present.

I was a bit surprised that it wasn't harder than it was. I haven't really run many hills in past months (or years really). Like on Saturday, the thought crossed my mind that maybe working on strengthening my core is beginning to pay off.

2 miles @ 8:06/mi  (8:21, 7:51)

Another uptempo run before my core exercises trying to teach my legs to run faster. I was quite excited to see 7:51 for the second mile, expecially since it felt pretty good and I never shifted to sprint mode.

I'm feeling pretty good about my training and progress so far,..knock on wood.

6 miles @ 9:42/mi

It was cold and humid this morning. My effort was pretty good, but I had a hard time getting up to speed.

2 miles @ 9:21/mi (10:01, 8:41)

It felt like winter was back running in the cold and lightly falling snow this morning. I decided to try to work my Altra shoes back into my training. Maybe with a stronger core this year I'll be successful in making the transition. I eased into the first mile and felt pretty good by the second mile.

14 miles @ 9:50/mi

I ran with Wayne and Kevin, but after the first several miles I couldn't keep up with either of them. My legs felt dead from the start.

Last week I averaged 9:30/mi for 13.1 miles. This week I only ran about a mile farther and only averaged 9:50/mi. I averaged 9:28/mi for 9 miles. The last 5 miles I was worried about the tightness in my right calf and really backed off the pace (9:43/mi for 2 miles then avg. 11:03/mi last 3 miles).

I opted for an "ice" bath after the run. At this time of the tap water is so cold that I thought I would get frostbite, but afterward my legs felt pretty good.