The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

"We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters."

- Robert Edward Lee, 1807 - 1870

My run yesterday was good... bad… and ugly

17 mi in 2:45

Good:

Started with Kara... ran the first 1.5 miles with her.

Mile 1 - 11:24
Mile 2 - 10:04

Ran the next 5 backwards from Kara on the same loop... I tried something different each time we passed to make her laugh.... she only laughed once... at my ballet moves.

Mile 3 - 8:46
Mile 4 - 8:43
Mile 5 - 8:57
Mile 6 - 8:39
Mile 7 - 8:35

I did not really hold anything back during the backwards loops... just trying to run 4 loops to Kara's 3.

We slowed for Gel/water after we linked back up

Mile 8: 10:40

I stopped to tie my shoe during the next mile and chased Kara for most of it. She had a really good day yesterday (10 @ 10:30)

Mile 9 - 9:12 (due to the auto pause feature of my Garmin)

Kara stopped at 10 and during her last mile or so she cranked it up.... I started feeling puny.

Miles 10 & 11 ~9:40

At the house (somewhere during this time) I stopped a minute to swap shirts and get a drink

Bad:

At this point I'm on my own and free to run my own pace.... Hard to get going again....

Mile 12 - 9:53

Picked it up on Mile 13 for a 9:07 but my entire left leg is starting to burn... I can feel that I'm running like a crab and dragging my left leg...

Mile 14 is a 9:31 and I'm seriously contemplating going straight home so as not to injure myself further I actually come to a complete stop and start to head home... but.... Masey and Kendall were at one of their friends house on the back side of the loop and I wanted to see/talk to them again....

Ugly:

Mile 15 I'm just trying to keep it together.... arguing with myself about finishing the loop or cutting straight for home.

Mile 16 I know that I'm cooked and fooked.... it's a 10:43.... I turned for home.

Mile 17 is just getting home.... it took 11:36 and I would have walked but... I did not... why? Because I wanted to write 17 in my training log instead of 16.x... silly I know but.... that's what I did....

Today I feel okay but... a little worried.


Maybe my hamstring problems are caused by the bike... We rode for 1.5 hours on Saturday.. I think my seat might be too high...

Or... maybe it's just that I'm tired and over-trained... it's the 19th and I have already run 104 miles this month.

I think that I'm just going to take it really easy until Thursday and see how that works out.