Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

11:00 AM, 75F, and hot sunshine. Objective: recovery run/walk. 

It felt great to sleep in, though getting up was still a Senior Moment.  Very stiff and sore. 

Mr. Sno came out with me for this little capillary-opening exercise, he barefoot and I in my old trainers. (Our first ever "run" together, though I wouldn't really call it running.)  I haven't worn these shoes in quite a while, and boy did they feel clunky, stiff and heavy! 

My blister hurts quite a bit with just a bandaid. I think I'll dig out my old Moleskin and do the hiker bandage on it, with the hole in the middle.  Now that I get a good look at the thing, it seems to be two blisters: a long narrow one and a smaller, rounder one right beneath it.  I am just cracking up, because it looks like an exclamation point! Hahahahahaha

62F, sunny w/ a few high, thin clouds. Another recovery run.

These legs feel pretty dead today. The first mile was incredibly weak and awkward. I was so glad to feel them loosen up after that.  But when I stopped for water, and started up again, they got wonky all over again. The second day is always the worst. Tomorrow will be better I'm sure.

60F & clear. (Dark @ 4:55am, autumn coming.) Easy run, still recovering.

I'm still pretty stiff and the quads are still sore, but I had a very pleasant run.  Lots of smiling runners out this morning.  I also ran into a former running partner, who took some time off from running but is now back at it. She and her husband signed up for the Seattle Marathon, so I should be seeing her more often. 

For podcast fans, here is an interview with Christopher McDougall, author of Born To Run.

Cloudy! :) 58F  Easy run. 20 min. weights.   Feeling impatient to get my legs back, I decided to make this run shorter. My quad soreness is gone, but the legs still feel really dead.  So this run was what I consider a "virtual" day off.  Hopefully I will feel the benefits tomorrow.  That's the trouble with racing, at least for me.  I can cheat a little on the taper, but there is no way around losing the time it takes to recover.  Love the weather change!  

55F, cloudy. Objective: still easy, but extend miles and try to pick up the pace. 

My legs have progressed from dead to sluggish, better than no progress.  In honor of my cloudy morning, here is an a cappella African Thunderstorm.   No instruments, not even the percussion - it's all done with human sounds.

55F, cloudy. Another beautiful day!  Objective: short run in VFFs.  20 minutes strength.

I let myself sleep in a bit, so with only about 35 minutes to run I decided to make the most of it and do a VFF workout.  I am still not very comfortable with the toe pockets. It's odd that that should be the only trouble I have with them. I wonder if I will ever really get used to it.  I think I might be most comfortable in something like a moccasin, or these.  

The VFFs are a lot of fun to run in.  What has struck me the most is the fact that I can run on grass with stability.  I believe I have mentioned on my blog in the past that even a little parking strip of grass will put me in danger of rolling my ankle if I'm in shoes.  With the VFFs I feel totally stable and secure on all surfaces.  Slow, but stable.  And man am I slow in these!  It just goes to show how much speed comes from the bounce of rubber in shoes.

High 50s to low 60s F, lovely cloudy day. Objective: endurance, club run, S.C. Hill. 

Very satisfying run. It was a little far to go on not-quite-recovered legs, but I am willing to pay the price of sitting on the couch the rest of the day. ;)  In truth, my legs feel horrible at the moment. Like, almost post-marathon horrible.  But they did a great job up until mile 16 or 17, then they had to be forced. Only a week from my half-marathon PR, so I'll take it.

Interesting route today: down the Parkway, to the club meet up at the high school, around the Mill Pond Rd and some other back roads of Snoqualmie I've never seen (never even knew they were there!), back into town (said goodbye to club), up the Spirit Crusher Hill (actually felt slightly easier today!), continued up to and into Deer Park, back down to central area and finally out to The Heights and back home. 

Dead deer story...  At mile 2, going down the Parkway, there was a dead doe in the road.  I approached her to make sure she wasn't still alive - she wasn't - and saw her poor body actually dented by the car or truck that hit her. The saddest thing was that her surviving friend was still hanging around, waiting for her in the bushes on the median strip. A police car happened by and stopped to take care of the situation, lights flashing.  Even then she still lingered near us.  So it is with death among social creatures; the pain goes on in those who are left behind. 

It was hard to shake that experience off, but running with nice people is good therapy.  A very nice 16 y.o. girl joined us today for the first time, and there were 4 of us in my pace group today.  Blackberries are starting to come ripe, and the roadsides are covered with them, so I had a little supplemental nutrition from time to time. Yum.

Here comes the cavalry! Sean Sundwall is looking at my training plan for the next couple of months and we'll be talking about it tonight or tomorrow.  As soon as he said "I like your mileage," I was ready to swear my loyalty.  Having someone look at my age and tell me to stop running quite so much is one of my biggest fears about having a coach.  I am really looking forward to having some extra guidance.  There is definitely something missing from my training, as evidenced by the inconsistency of my race times as I progress to longer distances.  For example, as I was telling Sean, my VDOT number (from Daniels Running Formula) is a 39, 37.5 or 36 depending on which of my race times I use, 5K, half-m or marathon.  Sir Sean will work all that out for me and help me get that marathon time down where it should be.  :D