Today's run was a little odd in terms of it being a long run, but I think I got a decent workout in so I am not upset at all. This past week had me pretty tired by the end of it, and despite going to bed on time I stayed in bed later than normal and I got up at 8:00 this morning. Because of that I had less time to run before Kimia went to a stake women's conference. So, I ran 8.25 miles with the plan to finish that and then take Anita in the running stroller for the remainder of the run. I ran 8.25 miles in 48:55 (5:55 average), running 5.75 miles as a tempo in 31:35 (approximately) running half of the tempo on a rolling uphill, and then the second half on a rolling downhill. During the downhill section I started chasing a guy on a bike. I would gain on him every time the grade was flat or uphill, but then he would gain on me when it was downhill. I split a half mile in 2:27 while chasing him, and in the next half mile he turned off of the trail, so my fun ended. After I got home to pick up Anita I got a bad cramp in my right calf. I think it is because my calf has still not recovered fully from either the issues it was having at the beginning of the month, or the half marathon last Saturday. I think running hard downhill is really what did me in, I need to remember not to do that any more. Anyhow, I decided to massage it out before finishing the run with Anita, and while I was doing that Anita fell asleep. So, I ended up letting Anita sleep, and I waited for Kimia to get home from the women's conference before I finished the run. My calf was still sore and hurt some when I left again (even though I had been at home for about 3.5 hours) so I decided against running a full 20 today. I ended up running out 4 miles and coming back, adding a detour to the track near the end. I ran another half mile or so fast while running uphill on the way out. I didn't measure or time it, but I got going pretty quick. At the end of the run I wanted to see what kind of quarter speed I had left after 16+ miles, so I ran a quarter on the track finishing in 1:04. There was some wind on the track, but not enough to slow me down by more than a second or so (I couldn't feel the tail wind when I had it, so the head wind must have not been too strong either). I finished what I will call 8.85 miles in 1:02:38 (1:51:33 total for 17.1 miles). My calf is still bugging me as I write this. It doesn't feel like I hurt it at all, it just feels like it is sore after a hard race or workout. I probably should have taken it easier than I did during the middle of last week since I had run a half the previous Saturday. Hopefully the slightly easier than normal Saturday run and Sunday off will let it recover so that I can keep up with my training next week.
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