Running With Jack

Today it was about 1C/34F when I got home from work at 4:05 p.m. I quickly suited up, warmed up and headed out on my 14K/8.7M route. My goal was a comfortable 6:00-6:15/K recovery pace (9:39-10:04/M). It was kind of windy as I started out and the first 5K I ran directly into the wind. This acted as a braking mechanism and I was able to average around 6:10/K for the first 6K or so.

Around the 6K point I made my normal turn into the woods (and out of the wind). I could feel myself picking the pace up slightly, but I felt good so this didn’t bother me too much. After a few minutes I heard gun shots off in the distance hunters! It was still hunting season! I had my bright orange warning vest on, but the sun had disappeared, so I turned on my blinking armband that I wear. I wished that I had my head lamp about that time - not so much to see, but to be seen!

I picked up the pace and did my best to beat track out of the woods as efficiently as possible. After about 15 minutes, as I was reaching the edge of the woods, I heard more gunshots but this time they sounded farther away. I guess the hunters were farther off in the other direction. So after leaving the forest I slowed my pace way down as I trotted over the dirt paths along the fields. It was still a bit light out, even though the sun had disappeared for the night. I left my blinking armband on anyway until I got back to town, you never know with hunters.

Even with speeding up through the forest I still managed to keep the average pace almost in the recovery range, 5:52/K (9:26/M). My legs are a little tired and the major leg muscles are tender when I jab them with a finger, may that has something to do with the fact that I just ran a race yesterday and a 30K/19M long run on Friday!

Tomorrow I want to head to the pool and do at least a 1000 meters breast stroke and maybe work on my freestyle if I have any energy left. Wednesday I want to run another 14K run at a slightly faster pace and Saturday morning is a medium long run (24K/15M) on the schedule. If my legs feel good on Thursday night I may run for 45 minutes or do some crosstraining, it will depend on what my wife has planned.

Diet Update

The day before Christmas I was 72 kg/159 lbs. (for about 12 hours). I shot back up to 74 kg/163 lbs. over Christmas and maintained that until yesterday morning. After the race yesterday I ate like a grizzly bear waking up in the spring and was up to 75 kg/165 lbs. this morning.

The good news is that today was the official restart of my diet, my goal is to be back down to 72 kg/159 lbs. by the end of next week. The next step is to bring it down to 70 kg/154 lbs. by the end of the month. My ultimate goal is to bring my weight down to 68 kg/150 lbs. I don’t know if I can do this when I’m training for a marathon. Anyone who has tried this KNOWS what I’m talking about. In any case it is a good excuse to keep running, right!