Every Run is a Great Run!

AM: 5 easy with Kim around river bottoms. Left hamstring still tight and buggy, but everything else feels pretty good.

Ave pace around 9:30.

PM: 5 with Paul and Nate on a beautiful fall-ish sunny day. Just took it easy, had some good chit-chat about running, but also some deeper topics including discussing the eastern concept of "Zen" vs. the Christian concept of "listening to the Spirit" and whether they aren't really just the same thing.

Left ham felt better but I still couldn't seem to get out of the running mode where my left foot slaps against the ground.

Ave pace 8:23.

Got to bed a bit late last night and had trouble sleeping for some reason, so decided to sleep in just a bit (is 6am wake up sleeping in?), go into work early to deal with some India issues, then run with Kim at work around 9:30 for the planned 11 miler including 8 miles of tempo for Kim around 1/2 marathon to marathon pace.  Weather wasn't too bad for a tempo run at that time, a bit cloudy but also a bit muggy. Toward the end of the run it started getting uncomfortable. Warmed up for 2 miles then paced Kim on the 8 mile tempo running West toward Utah Lake and back. She did great especially considering having raced on Saturday and with the temps a little warmer than usual. We averaged 8:25 pace over the 8 miles then did 1 more cooldown mile.

My hamstring felt the best it's felt for a while and I was pleased that my left foot wasn't doing its annoying thing where it slaps the road and I can tell my form is messed up. I have a strange little pain behind my big toe on the bottom of my left foot, right on the ball of the foot. It just showed up one morning a few days ago. Feels sort of like a bruise. Doesn't really bother me when running but sometimes gets annoying when walking barefoot. Wonder if its from all the slap-slap running. Hope it doesn't get worse and cause me to start running goofy (any goofier than usual anyway :)).

Tomorrow about this same time of day. I think I'll experiment with trying to run some miles in the 6-7 min pace range and gauge how the hammie is doing. I think from here on out I'll try and do any tempo/faster runs later in the morning and only run easy in the early AM. I just seem to do so much better after being awake a couple of hours or more, much looser and much less prone to injury I think.

Slept in a little bit again this morning and did the run just after 9am. Plan today was to experiment with some faster miles and if everything felt OK then do a run similar to Kim's tempo run yesterday but at my half marathon to marathon pace (6:20-7:00 min pace). 

Cloudy day today, cool but very muggy. After a 2.5 mile warmup I started out trying to just run smooth and ignore the garmin and just run a pace that felt good.  Mile 1 went pretty well around 6:40 pace and feeling good, but then toward the end of mile 2 I just got slammed with a huge dose of  I think what Sasha would refer to as "severe neural fatigue". Not breathing particularly hard but almost starts to feel like hitting the wall at the end of a marathon. Finished mile 2 in 6:50, attempted to hold that for mile 3 but it just wasn't to be and I terminated the workout at about 2 1/2 miles.

Jogged back to the gym at progressively slower and slower pace, feeling just hammered for no good reason. Legs actually felt not too bad, left hamstring aches were detectable but my form seemed ok, no flapping on the ground. Pain behind the big toe went away once the run started, not as dead-legged as some times. But the nervous system was just not wanting any part of it. Perhaps trying to tell me I'm on the verge of injury so I guess it's good that I listened and obeyed. Not sure how much a factor the humidity was. Frustrating to say the least.

I did this run on Kuhni Road, same stretch of road where I was doing all my tempo runs early in the year. Looking back on the tempo runs I was doing in Jan-March I'm jealous of myself. OH MARCH LEGS WHERE ART THOU?

Interesting thing is that after I got back to gym I decided to take some of my frustration out on the eliptical and do a hard 10 minutes. Was able to get my heart rate above 170 without much trouble and the nervous system didn't seem to mind cranking along at that level for a good long while and working up a nice sweat, breathing hard, feeling like I was really working but that I could continue indefinetely. Guess it just means my running muscles are hammered or something?

If anyone has any advice what they think I should do between now and SGM to try and stay in decent shape, but not crash-and-burn beforehand and go down in flames of injury, burnout and fatigue, please do tell! I may even be sufficiently humbled that I might actually even take the advice.

Ave pace: 8:25.

AM: Kim and I ran one of our regular river bottoms loops. Kind of a brain-dead run for me I think I was still asleep for some of it. Legs feel fair, just going to run easy every day for the time being and throw in some cross-training to give the legs a bit of a break while still working hard enough to get the heart up and out of the comfort zone. Trying to heed everyone's advice from yesterday.

Ave pace 9:36.

Late AM: Spent some time at the gym with my newfound rehabilition buddy Mr. Eliptical. Went a good 40 minutes this time, eased into it the first 5-10 minutes then played my little game where I see how high I can get my heart rate. Set a HR record as I was able to spend some time over 180 toward the end, but mostly in the 165-175 zone. I seem to vaguely remember back a few years when I had a HR monitor that I used to get into the 180s or even 190 on hard runs, but that was when I wasn't in that good of shape and 10 years younger, they always say MAX HR goes down with age. Guess I'll learn more when my garmin finally dies (it's already starting to flake out) and I break down and get that 305.

I feel so much better lately (mentally and physically) after working hard on the eliptical compared to running. I think that's my brain telling me I need to take a break from running and find some substitutes for a while. Looking forward to a nice taper after this week and some time off after SGM.

I'm off work today so Kim and I slept in and went out after getting the kids off to school. Ran just over 5 1/2 with Kim and another mile and a half solo. Just trying to keep things nice and easy and try and get my legs back and have enough steam for the long run tomorrow. 

Ave pace: 8:52

Kim and I joined with the SF Running Club to do the annual Payson Canyon 20-24 miler. Some of us decided that rather than start all the way up top and run so much downhill miles that we would start at the usual weekday start point below Payson Lakes and then run home. This ends up being 20-24 miles depending on which roads you take once you get in the valley.

I resisted the urge to push the pace on the steepest of the downhill and saved it for the lower less-steep section and along the mostly flat Salem Canal road. Tried to get some good miles in at around the slow end of my marathon pace range. Felt good but not great today, I can tell I need to make full use of the next 3 weeks of taper.

I'm just glad to get this last long-long run in the books. Luckily I don't seemed to have injured myself or make any of the lingering aches and pains any worse. Unfortunately Kim got bit today by the IT-band gremlin. It seems like any time she gets into the 18+ mile range for a long run she has troubles. She was pretty bummed out about that but I'm hopeful that with a good taper, some massage work, and just generally being smart and babying the trouble area that she can have a great 1st marathon.

Ave pace for middle 20 miles: 7:15 (includes 11 miles of downhill).