Tuesday 3/2/10 - Day off

Too long a day at work. Didn't get a chance to run at lunch and when I got home at 8:30 no motivation to head out for a late run.

2/29/10 - 8.25 miles - 60 minutes

I set my alarm to get up early and run hills, but the downpour bailed me out and gave me an extra hour of sleep this morning. My legs were still pretty tired so instead of doing a hard workout, I just ran for an hour and got in 8.25 miles at lunch. I was averaging just under 7:30 pace for the first half of the run and was running pretty easy, but I got kind of bored and picked up the pace and got down to around 6:50 pace by the end of the run. Nothing spectacular, but another run under my belt on the way to hopefully a 70 mile week.

Sunday 2/28/10 - 6.5 miles

This was a painfully slow recovery run. I didn't have any injuries, but my body was still beat from the long run in the hills Saturday. I averaged 8:00 pace for the 6.5 miles and finished in 52 minutes. I hate days like these. I really would liked to have stopped after 3 miles, but I needed the mileage. Sometimes I feel like it is a fine line between pushing myself too hard to where I increase the risk of getting an injury and toughing it out and putting in the miles even when I don't feel like it. I've wimped out on enough runs that I felt like I needed to trudge through it. It wasn't a fun run, but I finished it. I knew I was going slow because I saw a woman I know from work running laps at the park and she was going the opposite direction as me, but I could tell she was going faster than me based on where we would keep passing each other. The good news was my hamstring felt good for the run and my body is seeming to handle the increase in mileage pretty well. I really seemed to hit the wall with a couple of miles to go and I was just starving and felt like I was out of gas, but I rewarded myself with a nice steak dinner when I got home.

Saturday 2/27/10 - 22 miles

Friday night I was pretty exhausted and I think I fell asleep on the couch watching the Olympics between 8:30 and 9:00. Sometime around 10:00 or 10:30 my wife dragged me up to the bedroom to head to bed. I set the alarm for 4:35 wishing I had an excuse to not get up that early, but I knew that I really needed to head up to Conroe for a long run. I had to stop by my office on the way to the run to get my shoes with orthotics and my hamstring sleeve because I knew I would probably be in trouble without them. I got my bag with them and made it to the start right about 6:00 before everyone took off. I think I was probably the fastest person up there on Saturday, but there were a couple of guys running at a pretty good clip to start so I was glad that I didn't end up running the entire workout by myself. I ran with a couple of guys named Richard and Andreas. We weren't going to fast the first few miles, but everyone was tired and it was dark out to start and there were a few monster hills to start the workout. We park at a church on League Line Rd and then run out to the Marina and then head back. Then we ran off on a side road to where it dead ends and then back to League Line road. As we were going down the road I told the guys that last year when we were running on this road somebody had warned us about some loose dogs down near the end. As we crested a hill and could see the end of the road less a couple hundred yards away I start hearing this barking and see 3 large dogs come running towards us at full speed. The two guys I was running with turn around and start to take off and I told them not to run away because it would probably encourage the dogs to keep coming after us. We started yelling at the dogs and when they got to within about 30 to 40 yards I guess we scared them off and they finally turned around and headed back home. Next time I'm running in Conroe I think that I will avoid that road. Then we headed down another road and down a pretty steep hill that I knew would be a ton of fun to come back up. After about 10 miles we picked up the pace some and were averaging closer to 7:00 pace until mile 16. When we got to mile 16 I told the guys I was running with I was going to pick up the pace and try to get down into the 6:20/mile range for the last 6 miles. I didn't quite make 6:20 pace, but I did average 6:30 pace which I was pleased with considering some of the hills in the last 6 miles. If we had been running in Houston where it was flat as a pancake, I'm sure that I would have been down around 6:15 pace for the last 6 miles. I averaged 7:12 pace over the entire run and finished the 22.1 miles in 2:39. It was tough on the legs, but a good workout that I really needed. My splits were as follows:

1 - 8:03 - rolling hills, dark, and still half asleep

2 - 7:40

3 - 7:59 - coming up steep hill from Marina

4 - 7:19 - downhill mile

5 - 8:15 - stopped for a bit when dogs were running at us and didn't stop watch

6 - 7:39 - still coming uphill

7 - 7:18 - going downhill

8 - 7:21 - one of the flatter miles

9 - 7:26

10 - 7:45 - coming up steep hill

11 - 7:16 - rolling hills

12 - 7:07 - more down than up

13 - 7:08

14 - 7:02

15 - 7:11

16 - 7:05

17 - 6:25

18 - 6:32 - some tough hills in this mile

19 - 6:32 - another tough mile

20 - 6:26 - a little easier with some downhill, but uphill at the end

21 - 6:34 - toughest mile of the day - two steep uphills and downhills within 3/4 of a mile

22 - 6:30 - Another tough uphill in first 1/2 of this mile. I wanted to take it easy and I thought about saying that 5 hard miles was enough, but I needed to push through it to finish strong

22.1 - 6:10 pace - just cruising the last 0.1 miles into the finish.

I survived the run without any major issues. My hamstring felt good for a 22 mile run. My sleeve started to slide down my leg and I had to take it off and put it back on around mile 14, but my hamstring felt strong and didn't bother me at all during the last 6 miles. I haven't been using my Ben-Gay either to treat my sore hamstrings. I think the extra stretching and lifting I've been doing is making a difference.

I got a massage Saturday afternoon and it was kind of painful, but my legs felt really good afterwards. The massage therapist told me she can tell my hamstring is doing better than it was before the Houston marathon.

Friday - 2/26/10 - 6.5 miles

Friday afternoon I made it out for a couple of laps at the park. I had left my bag with my hamstring wrap and orthotics at the office so I didn't have them with me. I didn't wear a watch, but I ran it fairly easy since I was going to head up to Conroe for a tough run early Saturday morning. It was really windy out and there were some pretty fierce headwinds in some parts of the park. I'd guess I was doing 7:30 - 7:40 pace on average, but since I didn't have a watch I didn't know for sure. Without my hamstring sleeve I could feel my hamstring a little more near the end of the run, but it wasn't too bad.

Thursday 2/25/10 - 6 miles

I went for an easy 6.1 mile loop in 46 minutes. Not too eventful, but my legs felt ok which was good.

Wednesday 2/24/10 - 7.5 miles

I didn't get home from work as early as I would have liked and I didn't get out the door to start the run until about 7:30. My goal was to do about 9 miles including 6 miles tempo pace, but the workout didn't go quite as well as I planned. Between my hill workout Monday and the 9 miles Tuesday, my hamstring was feeling a little more sore than usual. I don't know if I tweaked something on the hill workout, but I could feel it a little more than usual. After the last two days, my legs felt a little tired too and I struggled to get my first mile below 6:15 pace and my goal had been to start at around 6:00 pace and drop to ~5:40 pace by the end of the 6 miles. Between my legs being tired and running late in the evening when it was darker out I felt like I was stumbling all over the place and after the first mile I decided not to do the hard workout and just do a regular run. I think it is more important for me to get my mileage up and stay healthy than get multiple speed workouts in each week. The rest of the workout at an easier pace felt fine.