A MUCH BETTER TEN

"I've lost thissssssss much fitness in the last couple of months."

After the Shamrock Run on Sunday I didn't run again until that next Saturday. Why, you ask? Well, Katie and I went for a 14 mile hike on Monday after Shamrock and the combo of a 9.3 mile race followed by a 14 mile hike was pretty hard on my body. I was somewhat sore on Tuesday but very sore on Wednesday. Almost post-marathon sore. Not quite, but it was pretty crazy! Thursday I was still somewhat sore, and while I could have ran Friday, I decided to take one more rest day just to make sure.

Anyways, on Saturday I did ten miles for my long run. I thought about running with Coach Jim, but the 8am wakeup call scared me off. I woke up around noon and put the run off until nearly 5pm. Needless to say, I wasn't chomping at the bit to get out there, but I knew I had to get it done. Finally I got out the door and did an out and back along the northern part of the Fanno Creek Trail. I usually go south on the trail when I do long runs from my house, so the switch up to the north side helped a little. It was the first time I had run there since last October.

It went MUCH better than the ten miler I did two weeks prior. Around mile 6.5 there my legs were hurting and afterward it felt like I had run 16 or 18 miles. This ten mile run felt a lot more like a ten mile run should feel... my legs didn't really tire all that much and I felt pretty good the whole way. A touch more soreness than I would have liked the next day, but nothing major. Just a product of not doing a whole lot of distance recently.

I feel like I am back to being "healthy." I've lost so much fitness and speed though... I'm way back to where I was in like May 2012 in terms of speed and distance ability. I hope once I start training regularly again it'll come back to me faster than it originally did. Needless to say, I probably won't be setting a bunch of PRs this year, if any at all. Maybe I can run a 12k and PR that, otherwise, this will likely be a "re-building" year. I'm thinking if I did a half marathon a good "A" goal would be sub 1:45... kind of humbling with my PR is seven minutes faster.