dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

9 miles in 1:11:05.  I felt a little stiff when I woke up this morning, and I thought that I might feel some residual soreness from the 5000 meter time trial I ran on Saturday.  Fortunately I felt good while out on my run today and I didn't feel any noticeable soreness or stiffness.  I could tell yesterday that the workout on Saturday was harder than I was accustomed to, but even yesterday the soreness was limited.

I started the run barefoot and ran the first mile in 9:07, and I made it to 1.5 miles in 13:07 before stopping to put shoes on.  After that I slowly caught up to the 8:00 guy and finally passed him just before the 7 mile mark.  Total time for 9 miles was 1:11:30.  Average pace after the first mile was 7:47.

I ran later than normal today because Kimia had a glucose tolerance test in the morning.  I ended up running with the kids in the stroller to the hospital to meet Kimia after the test (about 2.5 miles), then we had to run to Walgreens before running home.  I had run about 5.5 miles at this point, and seeing that the run was so broken up I decided to run a little extra in order to get to 10 miles on the day instead of just 9 as I had originally planned.

I ran over to the high school because I wanted to run a few strides barefoot on the track.  I found out fairly quickly that it was a bad mistake.  At 2:45pm with a black track my feet got roasted.  I tried to go into the grass, but the grass was actually hotter than the track because it was synthetic.  I only ran 2 laps barefoot and by the end of the second lap my feet were in a fair amount of pain.  I ran home after that, and I finished up the run with a total of approximately 10 miles in 1:20:25.

I planned on running 9 miles this morning, but I ended up running 10.5.  Kimia took the kids to a multi-ward breakfast at a local park, and after she left I though it would be nice if I ended my run at the park so that I could help her bring the kids home before the parade.  So, I ran 9 miles finishing at the park and realized once I got there that Kimia had already left and gone home.  After debating what to do for a minute or so I ended up running the last 1.5 miles home.  Total time for the run was about 1:22:00.

I noticed some bruising on my left knee yesterday evening while at a concert (featured music by John Sousa as well as some additional patriotic songs played by the Ames Municipal Band).  I'm not sure where it came from, and it doesn't hurt, so I am not too worried.  Just to be safe I wore normal shoes when running today (albeit shoes with over 2,000 miles on them).  I will watch the knee over the next few days to make sure nothing is wrong.

My whole family also came down with food poisoning yesterday evening.  The likely culprit was food we took to the parade yesterday afternoon.  It sat out in the sun all afternoon, and we didn't end up eating it until we went to the concert later on in the evening.  Both kids started throwing up in the evening after we got home, while Kimia and I both felt nauseous.  I ended up throwing up at 5:30 am.

As a result of everything I already mentioned I decided to take today's run really easy.  I told Kimia before I left the house that I felt as if I would throw up while out running.  Unfortunately I was right.  I stopped at 0.75 miles to void some liquid nastiness from my southward region, I stopped a second time just past 3 miles to void a different type of liquid nastiness from my northward region, and finally I stopped at about 4.25 miles for a third and final time to void from my southward region again.  I contemplated cutting the run short because I felt gross, but ultimately I decided to just keep running slowly and to finish the run.  I ended up running 9 miles in 1:16:08.

After finishing the run I drank some water which brought on more nausea.  I ended up lying down for a while which seemed to help some.  Hopefully I will be able to get some food down later on today, because I am hungry.

I ran 10 miles this morning in 1:14:31.  The first 1.5 miles were barefoot, and the rest wearing shoes.  At the end of the run I ran the final 2 miles hard (measurement is approximate).  I was lucky in that I did not have to stop at any stoplights during those 2 miles.  According to the course tool I started the 2 mile tempo at 903 ft elevation, I hit 1 mile at 950 ft, and ended at 945 ft.  This would lead me to believe that the first mile is slower than the second.  However, I ended up running the first mile in 5:44, and the second in 5:48.  Both miles have 6 turns in them, but the turns in the second mile are much sharper than those in the first making it slower than you would guess.  The second mile also rolls quite a bit slowing it down even more.  The first mile, while gaining 47 feet does have one stretch with a decent downhill in it, but otherwise climbs fairly consistently.  I had a hard time getting my legs to really move in the second mile, maybe due to all the uphill in the first mile and the turns?  According to the temperature I looked at online it was 75 degrees at the start of my run and 84 degrees at the finish.  My initial impression is that the heat did not affect me much.  I will need to think a bit more about that 2 mile tempo before I can really make any conclusions from it.

Update:  I ended up mapping the last 2 miles of my run on the course tool (I did it twice because the first time there was an error and it wiped out the whole thing).  Both times I mapped it out the distance counter showed 2.00 miles prior to hitting the Save button (it says 1.9922 when I press analyze... grrr) so I am pretty happy with myself and my ability to guess how far 2 miles was without any trail markers for guidance (There was a small section in the trees that I could not map as accurately as I wanted, but I was still able to follow the 'road' from the road overlay on the satellite image).

What does appear to be a little off is my estimated mile marker, explaining most of the discrepancy in split times (splits should probably be right around 5:45 and 5:47, or maybe both at 5:46).  The course tool says that the course is worth about .1 miles more than the actual distance due to the elevation change.  Knowing this brings things into focus for me a bit more.  It appears that I am a poor uphill runner currently, and after running uphill I seem to have trouble changing gears to get moving again (I could feel that problem during the second mile of the tempo run today).  Maybe I should start to focus on improving my uphill running ability.  I might start by running uphill strides and then work my way up to running shorter repeats up the massive hill near the 1 mile mark of the tempo.