Woah, this week was unreal. First week over 30 miles per week in 2-ish years, and I hit it out of the ballpark. Not that significant week over week increases are a particularly good idea for injury prone runners newly running a mostly pavement diet... but I'm so happy with this week, so happy.
I haven't done an 8 mile run in the same 2 year period, and this week I did THREE (3!). I also did two runs that I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I did two runs that vastly exceeded expectations pace-wise. I actually feel like a real runner for the first time in long time, and I'm just so excited to get out for each run. Its scary though, like I'm walking a very fine line. It all just seems too good to last. I feel like an injury or some inexplicable slowdown must just be around the corner...
I've had some niggles develop this week. My L anterior tibial tendon has been flaring a little bit lately, which makes me favor the L leg, which makes my R hamstring inordinately sore... and all of this could be fixed pretty easily by doing my ankle exercises... but time has been in short supply lately, and like I said... I'm treading a very fine line right now. Need to really work on this over break and banish the ankle pain!
Sunday 12/04/2011: Art Center Bike Loop (8.5 miles), 59:25 (7:02 pace). The crazy apocalypse state of road in Pasadena has provided the push I needed to finally implement this run that I've been wanting to do for years now. I did the easy Art Center Bike Loop going up Highland and coming back on Berkshire on foot! Love love loved the uphill parts, felt really good and strong, but the downhills felt really long and onerous. I was so glad for that last little hill that I hate so much coming back from the AC on the bike. Felt really good at the end! I got back to the Rose Bowl where I parked and was blown away that the Garmin said 59:25... starting out, I figured this would be maybe a 64 minute run. Amazeballs.
Monday 12/05/2011: Somehow made it to swim practice again for the first time in 2 weeks. 3650 yards, man this one was tough! Things didn't seem that bad in the beginning, but my arms were completely and utterly dead before we even hit the pulling. Needless to say that it was ugly. I was pleased that I didn't feel wheezy and out of breath as per the other times that I've taken some time off from swimming.
Tuesday 12/06/2011: 10K tempo at the Rose Bowl (2 laps), 42:05 (6:46 pace). This run falls into the category of 'complete surprises'. I felt tired... legs felt tired, everything felt tired... and I really really did not want to do a tempo run. But I knew that I was not likely to get much sleep for the rest of the week, so it seemed prudent to get this out of the way now. So I headed to the Rose Bowl, again for the reason that it had the least amount of debris so far as I could tell. (Goodbye for now, Arroyo Tempo Loop!) When I started, I still wasn't sure whether I really wanted to do tempo today, but I told myself to just do one lap comfortable and see if I could pick it up for the second loop. Honestly wasn't feeling that great, but I was really encouraged to see 21:32 as a split for the first 5K, so I figured I had it in me to pick it up a little bit. Second lap felt like a good effort, but still completely under control, a perfect tempo effort. Felt so good, I threw in a little sprint for the last 400m or so! Second 5K I guess was 20:33, not too bad at all.
It felt like a mental breakthrough for me to be able to just get out there and run sub-7 minute miles. Typically, I've always felt like I needed the flatness and regularity of the track to run these paces. To balance out the awesome-nesss of this run, apparently the powers that be decided to send my car battery to Car Battery Heaven after this run, which resulted in me being stranded at the Rose Bowl for an hour in rapidly falling temperatures. Would have completely frozen if not for my compression socks that I love so much! I guess the universe has this way of returning you to the same places sometimes. Not sure why transportation issues + Rose Bowl + really really cold is some sort of energy minimum state for me...
Wednesday 12/07/2011: Rose Villa / San Gabriel / Lombardy / Hill (4.7 miles), 37:30 (7:59 pace). This run was hard and sort of unpleasant. My body felt "off" in a way that I haven't felt in a long time but which felt so vaguely familiar... then it hit me: Oooooohhh, well hello there fatigue, not so nice to run into you again... This is how I used to feel on days after track workouts and Bailey Canyon climbs. So nostalgic and yet so unpleasant. I guess I've already logged some pretty quick runs already this week = body needs a break.
Thursday 12/08/2011: Cordova / Orange Grove / Mission / Los Robles (8.1 miles), 1:01:48 (7:38 pace). A really nice super late at night jog around some of the old South Pas routes. The sleep deprivation is hitting me pretty hard now. All nighter yesterday... feel like I've been hit by a bus. Had to take a nap after dinner, woke up discombobulated at 10 pm, but the first thought that popped into my head was that I wanted to go on a run. So I bundled up and headed out, just nice and easy. It turned out to be a nice run. First run over an hour too.
Friday 12/09/2011: Off, travel to Napa with the gang! There was no way a run was happening today. So, so tired and so, so stressed. Basically only got three 3 hour naps in the past 72 hours. I honestly don't remember Caltech being this bad. Good thing I got that tempo run out of the way before this hit.
Saturday 12/10/2011: KB Cabin to School Building (8.5 miles), 1:02:42 (7:25 pace). Beautiful run across pleasantly undulating terrain. Love, love, love. I had to check the Garmin map and gmaps twice to confirm the distance, because I certainly did not feel like I was going that fast. This was the first day that I really noticed the anterior tibial tendon issue. It made it really tough to run on the banked road, and I just couldn't land / push off with full force on the L foot. R hammy was just insanely insanely sore afterwards as a result. Amazing dinner in Sonoma and stretching a bit in the hot tub helped.
Week #6 Total: 35.9 miles. Woah, just woah. The comeback train is rolling on through!
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