Feeling old

Today's run was brutal. I was feeling sore from my long run on Saturday. Even after a day of rest I felt like I could use another. But I've got to stick to the training program so I hit the pavement this afternoon. The first 100 yards was just plain awful. I felt like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz... every joint and muscle in my legs felt stiff. For someone who will be turning 26 (in some units) in a couple of months, this was an unpleasant experience. I forged ahead knowing that some of the kinks would work themselves out when my muscles warmed up after the first mile. Well, there was some improvement but not a lot and I never really felt loose at any time during the run. Of course, there's more to it than that little number on my driver's license. To quote Indiana Jones, "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." I've been increasing my mileage and it's starting to hit me. I won't be running again until Thursday so hopefully that will give me some time to heal. In the meantime, in lieu of an oil can, I'm going to go soak in a hot tub.

The real training kicks in

My long run yesterday was 8 miles and it was hard. This surprised me and made me wonder if I'm up for this race in 5 weeks. But then I thought back to when I was training for the half and I think it was about this same mark that the long runs started getting difficult. I had the same thoughts then but despite my worries I finished the half and even managed to do better than I had hoped. So I'm trying to ignore that little voice of doubt in my head and press on. Today I am a bit sore from yesterday's run. It's a rest day for me and tomorrow I'll be running again. Why is it, then, that I feel like I could really use another day off?

A new PR

It's amazing how much better a run can feel when you don't have a cruel wind in your face for half of it. Today was still cold but without the arctic wind it was a good day for a run. Feeling rather light on my feet, I pushed myself and managed a new PR of 8:35 (for 5.8 miles). I knew I was running faster than usual when I passed a couple of young guys. That definitely doesn't happen often! I'm wishing that I could run again tomorrow - it's supposed to be sunny and 52 - but tomorrow is cross training and I have a full day on campus. Oh well. Eventually the warmer weather has to come to stay, right?

Hawaii v.s. Pennsylvania? Hawaii wins

Long time, no post. I spent last week in Hawaii on a family vacation. I was so looking forward to running there, in WARM weather! However, I had forgotten about the humidity. While walking around on the beach in the afternoon is pleasant enough, running in the mid-day heat and humidity is something else. Especially when you're coming from Philly weather. My first run, which was about 5.5 miles, was OK until I hit the halfway point. Then I started to feel not so good. Unfortunately I didn't have my cell phone with me, didn't know anyone else's cell phone number by heart, and had no idea what the address was of the house that we were staying at. So I had no choice but to press on and hope that I didn't collapse on the side of the road. I made it back to the house alright but I proceeded to immediately jump in the pool, clothes and all. After that I took better precautions to drink more water and run earlier in the day when it was cooler.

Even given the rough start to my running adventures in Hawaii, it still beats running in the PA cold, hands down. The weather here is improving... slowly. On Monday I was able to trade in my long-sleeved fleece for a T-shirt but today the fleece was back again. And today it was windy! I run a roughly rectangular route around campus and I swear that a third of that route had me running straight into the wind today while absolutely none of it had the wind at my back. How is that even possible? And a few of the gusts actually knocked me off course! Of course, if you know anything about how tall I am this is not so impressive. Anyway, I'm missing the Hawaii weather.

My race is now 6 weeks away. My long run is up to 7 miles. I'd really like to break a 9-minute mile pace for this race. On my good days I do that on my short runs (5 miles and under) but I don't know if I can keep it up for 10 miles. Time will tell, I guess. It helps that the course is flat to slightly downhill. As long as I come in under 9:30 I'll be happy.

Hills

I tried out another new route today. My training program has finally caught up to me and I had to do a 6 mile run today. The first time I've run more than 5 miles since the half back in Nov. I mapped out a route using the pedometer feature on Google Maps (pretty cool, if you haven't tried it). The one thing I neglected to look at was the elevation profile of the route. There were 5 pretty good sized hills. My usual routes aren't entirely flat but they don't have hills like these. It was a good workout and I'm sure I'll be feeling it tomorrow. The other issue was that my pedometer is acting up again and I ended up running 6.8 miles instead of the planned 6. Oh well.

Tomorrow I take off for Hawaii. I can't wait to run in the warm sunshine! Next Saturday I'll be running 7 miles along the Kona coast. It's going to be hard to come back to the Philly weather after that.

An 'aha' moment

Well, I think I've figured out why the treadmill bothers my hip. I believe that I over-extend my stride when I'm on the treadmill, for some reason. I was running at the Y a couple of nights ago and my hip started bothering me pretty much right away. After a couple of miles, though, it felt a little better and shortly after that I realized that I had unknowingly shortened my stride. I focused on keeping my stride short for the rest of the workout and the hip pain didn't come back. Now, one data point does not a theory make so I'll have to see how this plays out in future runs but I'm hopeful that I have a solution. Of course, if the weather would just improve then I wouldn't have to run on the damn treadmill anymore and that would be an even better solution.