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Saturday, February 6, 2010

This'll be a long one...

It was a pretty good running week and I was happy with what I had run considering I had a million excuses not to go almost every day.

2010/02/01 --- 7.87 miles in 1:18:13.22 on: road
(Pace: 9:56.3/mile)

I was anxious to get out there Monday night and had a pretty decent run, but Monday's are one of my shorter nights since Taylor is only at dance for an hour an a half. I actually thought I ran faster than what I did so I should probably start glancing at my Garmin during the run again. I usually hold off until the end because I seem to run faster...not lately. I'll talk about that later. I am still learning this area where I run, so instead of doing my usual loop, I knew I had a few more minutes before I had to meet Taylor and still feeling good and not wanting to quit yet, I found another short jog to add another mile. 7.87 miles was good enough for the night.

2010/02/02 --- 9.39 miles in 1:35:55.91 on: road
(Pace: 10:13.0/mile)

I REALLY wanted to do a longer run Tuesday, though I think it's too early to do too much and I'll talk about that later too, and considering my left hamstring was stinging pretty bad, I went ahead and went for 10 miles. Didn't quite get there because I ran out of places to run. I didn't plan the route right, but now I know for the next time. I had a couple issues this night. There was a huge fire at a home on my route that caused MAJOR smoke that I had to choke down for a good quarter mile...not fun. Felt really bad for the family. =( The smoke was cleared after 20-30 minutes when I looped back around, but the street lights were now out and I literally could not see the ground beneath me or where to step next. I was worried about hitting a crack or dip and spraining an ankle, so I backed off a bit for quite a while. I felt good after the 9.39 and could have done more, so I was disappointed I didn't plan right.

2010/02/03 --- 6.04 miles in 1:00:55.94 on: road
(Pace: 10:05.3/mile
)
I had really planned on doing a 10 miler on Wednesday, since Tuesday and Wed. nights are when I have the most time and figured I would work up to it Mon. and Tues. I couldn't wait and obviously, did the 9 on Tuesday, but I was going to go ahead and do it again Wed. My hamstring was really bad by Wed. though and probably shouldn't have run on it at all...I had to though.

2010/02/04 --- 4.30 miles in :41:12.81 on: road
(Pace: 9:35.1/mile)

I planned on just doing my 4 mile route(I only have 1 hour on Thursdays), take it easy and save it for my bridge run on Friday morning. I just couldn't though and ran the 6 mile loop instead. BTW...when I got there that night, the weather was looking REALLY BAD. It looked like it would pour any second and was sprinkling. I turned around looked at the car, turned back around, hit the start button and went.

2010/02/05 --- 6.26 miles in 1:00:09.04 on: road
(Pace: 9:36.5/mile)

Friday!! Couldn't WAIT to get to the bridge and for some reason, my hamstring didn't feel all that bad. It should have after all the abuse I put it through this week! The weather was really threatening and was just going to head home. Bad clouds again...I just had to go though and so I did. It was warm and humid all the way out to the beach and back, but I loved every minute of it.

So I've been really disappointed in my pace. I was never that fast, but it's been 1 minute/mile slower than my average and I worked hard for 2 years to get to that point after taking up running again after 24 years. I've always tried to remember that I run because I love it and not because I want to win any races, but it sure was nice medalling a couple years ago. I really didn't know what was happening now. I know some of it is these Nimbus 11's I've been alternating with the 10's. They are just not the same. Very heavy. Anyway, I looked back at my running logs and was SHOCKED to see that I only ran once in Dec. and once in Nov.!!! I hadn't even realized it..how dumb is that!??! It just went by so fast and I was so busy with those holidays. I thought, well there must be something else...so I was reading my new Runner's World magazine and someone asked "How many weeks can I skip running w/o losing all of my hard-earned fitness?" The answer, from University of Washington, was after 3 to 6 weeks you lose it all!! I also remembered that when I went on vacation for 3 weeks this summer, how hard it was to run again. I guess you just can't do it. You have to get out there and do SOMETHING. So I'm back at square one...no, a little higher because although I'm slow, I can still run for hours no problem..which I miss. I am going to work slowly at the speed and I know it will come on it's own like it did before, but I definatlely know that I don't want to push anything and get injured like I used to which knocked me out for weeks. I don't want to go through that again. So slow and steady it is...

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