Oct 17

FIT:
Awww, I was hoping I just did 16, but it was reall just 15.1. Oh well, I'll take it. Thankful it went okay.

I had toyed with the idea of doing maybe 12 on the treadmill yesterday evening, but I figured that it may be smarter idea to give my post-race legs 24 hours of rest first. No need to rush. The week still had 1 day left to get in the LR. Then, I toyed w/ the idea of running at 7am, to have temps in the 40s, rather than in the 70s, like it would be the rest of the day after church. Well, I'd have to run the first 30 min in the dark, and if I wanted to make Sunday school, with a shower, I'd have to leave at 8:30 at the very latest, and that still would've only been a 1:30 run at best. Not safe to run in the dark, because of footing, not because of people.

So I thought about doing the treadmill, to have full shade and comparable 70s temps, but the treadmill is definitely not the same. First, it pulls you a bit, so you're not so much the one pulling during the initial phase of footstrike . Second, you have to adjust the speed by hand, whereas with running, you can naturally slow down or speed up depending on how your body is feeling. Third, with varied surfaces, your foot hits at different angles and works your stabilizers. That definitely takes more work, but it can help to be able to give certain nagging spots a rest by adjusting form. Not as much room to do that on the treadmill, which is always flat. You strike more or less the same way each time, so whatever form you're using, good or bad, you'll be doing it over and over again. So no treadmill.

It wasn't quite as terribly hot as I'd imagined, so to the run it was! Ate an apple and cheese in the car, clippped on my new Shuffle, visor, shades, pak w/ energy bar (didn't use b/c ended up getting queasy) and jelly bellies (finished the rest of the pack... 8 beans maybe), oxysox, and 1224's w/ stab. I've ordered replacement 1224's, since the current ones are approaching 300 miles, so I can go ahead and finish them off. Good shoes. They've served me well in long runs.

Umm... stopped to drink at the water fountain every 3 miles. Listened to podcasts a/b a guy running his final Boston as a way to go down fighting as arthritis or something sets in in his knee. It was shady maybe 60% of the time, which was good. The 40% was uncomfortable, but you just do it. No real issues. Hamstrings were better this morning, though still fairly sore. The run worked out most of the soreness though. Quads started getting a bit tired maybe 70% of the way in, but never lost too much strength. Stomach got queasy maybe 80% in. Right butt had a slight twinge of pulled-ness, but went away. Right knee got a wee bit grindy maybe 65% in, on the outside, but I did the old swing hips trick, and it seemed to help. It was mentally tough with 3 miles left, but I just told myself to think of it as a 3mile cooldown, where I could take it easy without feeling the need to finish strong, and that loosened up my stride and kept things fairly comfortable. It was tough, though.

Finished and just laid on the parking lot ground for a while. When I first got there, many people in matching t-shirts were parking - saw from the shirts that it was a Walk for the Homeless. Some were trickling back as I finished and collapsed. Many good Samaritans came by and asked if I was okay, needed water, needed them to call someone, etc. Later noticed many Presbyterian sickers on the cars in the lot. Good Samaritans.

I refueled w/ mixed greens and a bagel. Now, eating an orange an icing. I think I wanna try and bike tomorrow to get bloodflow to speed up recovery. Hope I recover okay. A year and a half ago, when I first got in to more serious running, each 16.6 miler got easier and easier, so hopefully, that's the case here. Oh man. I can't believe the 15 was that hard.

Splits> 15:20 p, 7:34 c, 7:36 p, 7:32 long b, 6:12 short p, 7:37 c, 7:36 p, 7:32 long b, 6:27 short p (ooh, slowed down), 7:45 c, 7:39 b (got some speed back), 7:37 long b, 6:16 short p, 7:46 c (slow again), 7:34 p, 7:53 long b (slooow), 10:03 car.

15.1 in 2:16:17, 9:02 ave. Used to beable to run 16.6 in less time than that... in ideal temps, though.