looking uphill

it seems that when you're having a rough run, every pace, no matter how slow, is tough.

i had an easy eight on the schedule last night. it was warm (in the 80's again, and humid) when i started out yesterday. as i ran down the hill our place sits on, i could feel tight tendons and felt the stiff-skeletal jarring feeling. i tried to focus on form to ease into my pace, but i had a really tough time warming up. no matter how much i tried to pull back on the pace, everything felt somewhat labored.

rather than do the hill loop around our place (and run surface streets with rush hour traffic for eight miles), i opted to head over the freeway and catch the top of the san diego creek bike trail and run that for a while. two miles later, i was running in relative solitude along a little used stretch of the trail. it was still warm, and i was still a little stiff, but i was able to keep the pace easy enough that i didn't feel too uncomfortable.

aside from the forerunner freaking out on distance/pace the run was uneventful and i was able to get through it without too much of a struggle.

so, now it's thursday and i'm at the bottom of a huge mileage hill, looking up. i've got a positive attitude about the next couple days, even excitement, but there's still the feeling of, "wow - that's going to be an uphill battle". today i have a minimum of 10 miles of interval running to do, and if i take the high side of the option, 15. and i know me, i'll do the three mile warm up and three mile cool down, along with three repeats vs. two. the repeats consist of one mile @ 6:55-7:00, .25 recovery, two miles @ 7:10-7:20 and .5 recovery. actually, with the recovery mileage, three repeats will be 17 miles. holy cow.

i say holy cow, because after a day off on friday, i have a 20 miler on saturday. yeah, i'm keeping positive, and i know i can do that kind of mileage in close proximity. so i feel like i'm standing at the bottom of a huge climb, knowing the leg burn i'll have going up, but anxious to get going. thank goodness it's a holiday weekend and we're sticking around town. i think lots of movie-going and lounging around the pool is in order!

Posted by jeff at May 26, 2005 2:31 PM