Sunday, July 09, 2006

What a difference a day-off makes

No running yesterday. Instead, I biked for about 90 minutes on the All American Trail. It was actually a good cross training. I thought it would be a nice stroll in the park. For the most part it was except for climbing the hills. I'd rather run the hills. I'd pedal at a low gear on the hills, but it seemed like I was not going anywhere.

I woke up this morning wondering how my right leg would hold up for the long run. I iced the injured area quite a bit yesterday. If the leg hurts as bad as Friday's run, then I'll end the run early. If not, then I'll run long. I started out on a 4 mile loop before going any further. This allowed me to be in walking distance if I called it quits. Early in the run I could feel a little twinge in the right leg, but it was bearable. While moving along at about a 6:50 pace I noticed that my right leg was no longer in pain. An hour into the run and I was feeling very good, so I dropped the pace to around 6:40. I initially planned to run for 1hr45m, but decided to make it 2 hours since my legs still felt fresh. The day off yesterday might have helped freshen up the legs. As usual, I ran the last 20 minutes at about marathon pace. I finished off the last 3+ miles at 5:55-6:05 pace. The pace felt comfortable and I know I could have kept going. I'm really glad my right leg held up. I ended up having a very good long run, which was about a 1/4 mile short of 18 miles.

Today's Run: 2:00:07

Weekly Summary: 67 miles - 7 workouts / 6 days;

2 comments:

Eric said...

Good news about the leg. I hate those kind of pains.

Nice run today. A faster finish on a long run inspires a lot of confidence, especially when you finish feeling like you could go on and on and on...

Anonymous said...

Just stumbled upon your blog, and figured we share a coach :). Some trademark workouts like pace booster runs immediately made me think "Hey, this sounds like MY schedule!".

Great job on your training, Wayne! I wish I could be this fast, even by women's standards. But I'm working hard, and have improved tons since last year. You can see my running blog at http://maria.fastrunningblog.com
Feel free to stop by and drop a line. I can always use more encouragement, advice, etc., especially from someone following a similar program.