LONGEST RUN SINCE PORTLAND

Part of the barkdust trail on the Nike Campus.

After the Give N' Gobble I felt pretty good. I used to get really sore after races, even short ones, but I think I might have put enough miles in my legs that during most short races that won't happen any more. I'm sure I'll still get sore after anything over a 10k, but for now its nice to be able to crush a 10k and not be hobbling around for a few days.

While I wasn't very sore, my legs certainly weren't very springy. After taking all of Friday off and doing absolutely nothing I forced myself outside on Saturday and ran sixteen miles. I'm surprised I actually ended up doing it, I was laying around all morning thinking about how I could rationalize doing less or skipping the run altogether. The excuse that I just PRed in a 10k almost won out, but the fact I had a long weekend and had eaten way more than usual finally won out.

I ended up running a new route up to the Nike Campus. Pretty conventional way of getting there, up the powerline parks to TV Highway. At this point I didn't want to wait for that long light so I had a plan to run along the railroad tracks and use the underpass for the trains to get across without waiting.

It worked and was a fun adventure but I'm not sure I'd do it again! The threat of a train hitting me and the fact the ground was either really large gravel or timing your strides to hit the slats of the track wasn't the most fun! At one point I almost shit my pants because I started running on a bridge without realizing it. I was paying so much attention to my footing I didn't realize the bridge was coming up and then all of a sudden I'm running on a wooden bridge with large gaps down to the water! Yikes!

Anyways, that mile along the tracks took a little bit out of my legs and the trails at Nike took even more. I mixed the Campus Trail (2 miles) with the Hollister Trail (1.5 miles) and did each twice in a big loop to clock 7 miles on campus. The campus trail is barkdust and was soggy from some recent rain so that was a little more work than I am used to (almost a "trail run"). My mile times went from the 9:40s to the 10:15s just due to the change of surface.

After the Nike portion of the run, which overall was pretty fun, I just ran back straight along Murray to my house. I was feeling surprisingly good for the distance I was running and normally hate running along busy roads, especially straight ones. Something about running up Murray was fun though, I could see the top of Sexton Mountain way in the distance and knew once I made it to the top of that, it was all downhill to my house.

So I just put my head down and killed it. I wanted to make up for the over 10 minute miles at Nike so I ran hard home on miles 13-16! Last three miles averaged 9:18. I was feeling great! Was so glad I decided to go out there and run and do the full sixteen. Before I knew it I was at the top of that hill and I coasted home. I hit 16 miles right as I entered my neighborhood. Perfect!

The run did take a little out of me though. I was fairly sore and worn on Sunday and yesterday (Monday) I wasn't feeling too hot either. Ended up doing five too fast miles at run group and irritating my glute again, which had been quiet since before the marathon. My body recovers so slow, it's annoying. Anyways, I'll be more determined to run slow at group Wednesday and not get suckered into following the crowd.