Relaxing 5

Day 453 - March 29, 2010

Ran a nice 5 miles between rain showers today. The sun came out, the temperature was good, and the pace was comfortable. Today's run helped me reach the 140 mile mark for the month. I won't quite get to 160 like I had secretly hoped, but another 140+ month is nothing to sneeze at. I'll give it another shot in April.

Back to 100 Percent

Day 452 - March 28, 2010

HooRAY!! As hoped for, the hip is back to normal and the weekend runs were a success. On Saturday I decided to test the hip and do an out and back 5 mile run. If I felt good at 2.5, I'd extend the "out" another mile and make it a total of 7. I am happy to report that I felt great and with all that I added on, I logged over 8 miles and ran for over an hour pain free.

Today was the real test. The plan heading into this Saturday's Charlottesville 10 miler was one more interval workout at the track today, then sort of coast the mileage back down to taper for the race. That plan was fine until it decided to rain all day here. I kept waiting for a break, but it never came. I was less than thrilled to go out to the track in the pouring rain. Have you ever had one of those runs that you think will just get better if you keep procrastinating? It took over 30 minutes to force myself out the door.

I got to the track and was soaked by the end of the first two laps. I decided I would do at least two 800's and if it was terrible, I would quit and go home. I took 5 laps to warm up and then turned in a 3:02 for my first 800. Not too bad. After a 400 recovery, I came right back with another 3:02, and followed that up with a 3:00 minute 800. Ok, three down and I'm still doing ok. I took an extra lap and ran an 800 recovery before interval #4. That extra rest was like magic and I legged out a 2:56. There was no way I could end on the fastest 800 of the day, so I did another 2 lap recovery and finished the day with a 2:59 for interval #5. Totaling up all the cool downs and recoveries, I manged to run 6 miles in the rain and felt much better at the end of the workout than the beginning. Just the kind of confidence I was looking for going into race week.

God bless this streak! There is no way I would have run today without it. Getting through a week like this past one lets me know that the only thing between me and 1000 days is another 548 runs. The rest is just mental!

I'm still here

Day 448 - March 24, 2010

The streak continues, but as they say, life comes at you fast. I will be posting more regular updates soon. My training was going real well until yesterday when I pulled a hip flexor playing a pickup football game. I'm hoping it is just a strain, but the last two days have been 1 mile minimum runs. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be back to 100% by the weekend. we'll see.

Running in Mexico

Day 434 - March 10, 2010

Cancun is a beautiful place. The weather is amazing. I have logged three runs so far and will do one more tomorrow before returning home to Virginia. More run details to come.

Saturday long run

Day 430 - March 6, 2010

Logged another long run today - 14.8 miles and it felt great. I finished the week with 42 miles which gives me 80 for the last two weeks. I'm leaving on a 5 day business trip in the morning that I expect will limit my miles next week. But, hey, how many other runners can say they ran in Cancun will trying to maintain a running streak and get to 1000 days?

Intervals - finally ran some speed

Day 427 - March 3, 2010

I had never done an interval workout on the road in the dark before tonight. After dinner (a very lite dinner) I went out for my run. The goal was to run easy for 4 minutes, then hard for 4 minutes, repeat. I chose a course of 6 miles and I was hoping to finish in just under 44 minutes. That equates to 5 easy hard cycles and a final 4 minute cool down. I ended up pushing the last two minutes of my cool down trying to beat the clock and ended up 5 seconds over. Not bad for a first attempt. All in all a good run and I think I can do it faster next time, hopefully before it gets dark.

One month until the Charlottesville 10 Miler!