dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I woke up a little late this morning so I started from my house and I met up with Sasha, Hyrum and Daniel on the trail.  We ran out to the 1.5 mile mark and then back to Sasha's house where we dropped off Hyrum.  At this point I had about 250m less than 3 miles because I started from my house.  We then ran out to the 3.5 mile mark with Daniel turning around at 2.5 miles and we came back.  On the way back I continued on the trail back to my house instead of going to Sasha's house.  I finished in 1:22:33

I ran with Sasha, Josse, and Daniel this morning. We went out 3.5 miles then came back. We kept the pace really easy and we finished in 57:33. Normally I would have run 3-6 more miles, but my leg has been feeling weird. I finally pinpointed the place where it feels strange and it is on the medial side of my left leg about 6-8 inches below the knee. From probing around it feels like it might be at a muscle insertion point on the tibia and it felt sore after I massaged my calf and rubbed that area down after running today. I just iced the leg and I am going to rub it down again to see if starts feeling a little better. I think I will take it easy for the rest of this week and then increase the mileage back to where it was starting next week as long as I feel better.

So, I massaged the calf again and then iced it one more time after class.  I found some big knots in the calf earlier and I was working them out.  I have to say that working out tight muscles can be painful.  I am just glad that it appears to be nothing more serious than that.  I am trying to figure out the cause of all this, and after narrowing it down I think that it is being caused by riding my bike too hard and pushing off too hard with my calves while I ride to and from class.  I am going to keep massaging and icing it.  I think that I might use some heat as well and see how that affects it.

We took it really easy this morning.  I ran with Sasha, Hyrum and Daniel again and we ran 3 miles before dropping off Hyrum.  We then went out 2.5 miles and back.  Sasha was doing 200m repeats so he was usually visible but not with us.  Daniel and I finished in 1:04:05.

My leg felt a lot better today after being aggressive with it yesterday.  I couldn't feel as much tightness today and for the most part I forgot about it until there was about .5 miles left and it tightened up a bit.  I massaged it again after I got home and I will probably ice it later on today.  Hopefully I will feel good enough by the end of this week to run a long run so that my mileage for the week isn't too low.  Regardless of that I plan on being back to full mileage next week.

I took it easy again this morning.  I met Hyrum, Sasha, and Daniel again this morning. Hyrum turned around after 1 mile and then Daniel turned around at 4 miles.  Sasha and I went out to the end of the trail and then came back to finish the run in 1:19:54.

My leg is getting better.  Based on how it feels I think that I might still do a long run on Saturday instead of cutting it down to 10 miles like I was planning at the beginning of the week.  I still notice just a little bit of soreness, but it is minimal.  My right hip is a little sore because my hips were getting out of alignment again.  I did my exercises to fix the alignment issue and it seemed to work.  The exercises cause some stretching of the muscles in my hip, thus the soreness.  Hopefully that will go away in a couple days like it usually does.

I ran with Sasha, Daniel and Hyrum this morning.  We dropped Hyrum off after 4 miles finishing in 32:20.  We went back out and Daniel turned around after 2 more miles and Sasha and I turned around after 3 more miles.  We finished in 1:18:26 for 10 miles.  We were running close to 7:00 pace over the last couple of miles.

My leg still feels kind of weird and I am not sure if I am just imagining things or if there is still some lingering effects of what was going on early on in the week.  I felt fine while running today and I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, however later on in the day my leg felt like there was this dull ache to it.  Again, I am not sure if it is still not 100% or if I am imagining this all and it is fine, but I guess I will find out soon enough.

I ran the Magna 5K this morning. Sasha, Tyler, Steve, and I (plus my wife Kimia) carpooled up to the race and we warmed up together. At the start of the race the temperature was a little cooler than expected but not too cool, and there was a tailwind which helped. I went out behind the leaders and they put a quick gap on me. I was sitting in about 9th place at the beginning. Here are my splits.

Mile 1 - 4:34 - I was in 8th place by the mile mark with Tyler one second back and Sasha a second or so in front of me. This ties for the fastest mile I have ever run, tying with a mile I ran in practice once. This mile by far had the biggest elevation drop of any in the course which explains why it is so fast.

Mile 2 - 4:49(9:23) - I was in 6th place by this point, just a few seconds out of the money (only $20 but I still wanted it). Sasha was 3 seconds back and Tyler was 13 seconds behind me. This mile had a good amount of downhill near the beginning of it, however it flattened out after a bit and even had a slight increase in elevation over the last few hundred meters.

Mile 3.1 - 5:44(15:07) - I missed my time at the 3 mile mark but based on my pace from 2 miles to the finish I averaged about 5:10-5:11 pace. So, if I give myself a 5:11 I come up with a 14:34 at 3 miles. My official time was actually 15:08 due to rounding per USATF rules since it was not chip timed, but I know it was a 15:07 so I am counting it. The last mile continued the slight uphill from the end of the second mile then flattened out. There was a quick drop and then the course flattened out again to come into the finish. I sacrificed Josh (the 5th place runner and thus my sacrificial lamb for the day) shortly after the 2 mile mark to pull into the money after which I put 8 seconds on him by the finish. Sasha finished in 8th with a 15:25 and Tyler came in 9th at 15:28. Steve finished 10th in 16:06 (not bad for his first post injury race).

So, I am happy with the big PR, especially since I have not been training for short distances and I have done almost zero speed work. However, I am not as happy as I would have expected. I think I could have gotten a few more seconds out of my legs if I would have pushed it harder the last mile and now a big 'what if' keeps running through my head. I would like to eventually get under 15:00 and although I don't know if that was in my range of possibilities today I think that eventually I can. Anyhow, I am pleased with the race and I am looking forward to future improvement.