The sunset last night was gorgeous.
distance: 4 miles (outdoors)
total program distance: 7 miles
pain level: minimal
Heeding my wishes, the rain stopped as I left work. By the time I got up the hill the sun had broken through the dark clouds and was shining on all the wet, brightly colored leaves on the hill and on the streets down to the river…it was amazing. (This picture is not from last night, but it captures the general awesomeness of the view at sunset.) I had hoped that the rain would get rid of the bugs around the reservoir – not so much. Something I forgot to mention yesterday is that on the track around the lower reservoir there are little swarms of gnat-like creatures (perhaps gnats). They congregate on the south-eastern side and fly right at my face height (goddamn it). It is really, really hard to keep good race form and breathing when you inhale clouds of gnats every twenty paces or so. Ugh. It was better tonight, but I was also smart and wore a baseball hat. That way I could pull the brim down and angle my head aawy for the few minutes that I was running through their turf. I can't wait for the first freeze to kill those suckers off.
My legs felt stiff/fatigued yesterday as I was coming home, but after I warmed up they seemed okay. The first mile, as usual, was tight. I took it slow, like a continuation of my warm-up, and my shins limbered up. I think they will be my problem area. I've never had any knee, back, or thigh problems, ::knock on wood:: The only thing that gives me trouble are sore shins, which I know are shin splints. They aren't very bad though, just sort of a dull ache rather than any sharp pain, and I've never had to stop running because of them. I've been following the advice of the NY Road Runners gurus and doing their stretching regime, which helps. Hopefully as I get more mileage in I'll reduce the shin splints and not get any other aches and pains. (Yeah right!)
It's definitely my legs that hold me back – that's sort of a "duh!" thing to say, I know. But last night I was running around the track and I felt like I wasn’t breathing hard enough (again, I could nose breath). I consciously tried to go faster but it was hard for me to make my legs go fast enough to get my breathing elevated. They were all "dude, you've always been happy to just sort of plod along, why shake things up?" Clearly I need to do some speedwork to get my legs used to going faster, since cardiovascularly (apparently that isn't a word, but it should be) I'm doing just fine so far. Tonight I have a 3-miler; I think I'm going to go up to the track and try running one lap fast-ish. As fast-ish as I can manage. We'll see how that goes...
My legs felt stiff/fatigued yesterday as I was coming home, but after I warmed up they seemed okay. The first mile, as usual, was tight. I took it slow, like a continuation of my warm-up, and my shins limbered up. I think they will be my problem area. I've never had any knee, back, or thigh problems, ::knock on wood:: The only thing that gives me trouble are sore shins, which I know are shin splints. They aren't very bad though, just sort of a dull ache rather than any sharp pain, and I've never had to stop running because of them. I've been following the advice of the NY Road Runners gurus and doing their stretching regime, which helps. Hopefully as I get more mileage in I'll reduce the shin splints and not get any other aches and pains. (Yeah right!)
It's definitely my legs that hold me back – that's sort of a "duh!" thing to say, I know. But last night I was running around the track and I felt like I wasn’t breathing hard enough (again, I could nose breath). I consciously tried to go faster but it was hard for me to make my legs go fast enough to get my breathing elevated. They were all "dude, you've always been happy to just sort of plod along, why shake things up?" Clearly I need to do some speedwork to get my legs used to going faster, since cardiovascularly (apparently that isn't a word, but it should be) I'm doing just fine so far. Tonight I have a 3-miler; I think I'm going to go up to the track and try running one lap fast-ish. As fast-ish as I can manage. We'll see how that goes...
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