Running With Jack

When I got home from work yesterday I was beat, a combination of being mentally exhausted from an extremely busy week at work and having trouble sleeping for the last two nights. My wife was at night school and I had about 25 minutes until I had to leave to run with my running club, so I invested in a 10 minute nap on the couch.

I woke up from my catnap feeling better and rushed to get ready to run. I made it out the door in just enough time to run the 4K/2.5M to the trailhead where the group met. As most of the people that I normally run with had just finished a marathon or half-marathon on Sunday, I was hoping for a nice easy-paced 11K/7M run with the group.

As we headed out it was apparent that these people have different ideas about taking it easy after a major race, as they were quickly up to their normal pace (e.g. fast) within a few hundred meters. After 4 or 5 kilometers I decided I had enough speed training and let the group pull ahead, as I dropped back to about a 5:30/K (8:51/M) pace. Shortly after this one of the runners (Walter), that had run the marathon in 4:10:00 on Sunday, dropped back and joined me. A couple minutes later the remaining 4-5 runners turned and took a shortcut back to the trailhead, I guess they burned themselves out. Walter and I continued on at our comfortable pace and finished the 11K in 59 minutes.

After chatting with some of the group for a few minutes after the run, I started feeling cold so bid my farewells and ran the 4K/2.5 back to the house. Altogether I ran about 19K/12M for the night, mission accomplished.

This morning I feel good, my legs are a little sore, but I have had two faster pace runs this week so this is to be expected. I slept much better last night, probably too tired to let thoughts about work and life keep me up.

Tonight I want to run about an hour at a recovery pace and on Saturday morning for about 2-2 ½ hours on my hilly route. My last long run before my 50K (Oct. 21) will be next Tuesday, a holiday in Germany.