Second Wind

Spent all day today at a softball tournament that my daughter played.  Her team played 6 games over two days and ended up the consolation runner-up.  It was a tought tournamant for our girls we lost a catcher and a pitcher to injuries.  The catcher got her hand stepped on while trying to apply a tag at the plate and our pitcher caught a line drive with her nose.  It wasn't pretty but they played great and finished strong despite being very worn out.....along with all the parents.

AM

Man, I don't think I can finish a marathon the way I am feeling right now......I take that back, I can probably finish, just not with the goal I am aiming for.  These nagging injuries just won't let up and I don't know if it's even worth the effort to make an attempt at the marathon and risk additional injury when I am fairly sure my BQ goal is out of reach.  Meg and I talked about running to finish and running to meet a goal today.  I have already finished two marathons, finishing is not my goal anymore, I want to run at a certain level and if I can't (due to injury) I look at it like.....what's the point?  Anyway, I will give it the rest of this week before I make a decision.....what a bummer.

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PM

Had the corporate challenge walk race this evening and this is the 5th year in a row that I have participated in this race.  Race walking is an interesting sport but you look like a total dufus doing the walk if you do it right.  The whole hip movement is really......well strange.  I didn't do any specific training for this race other than my usual running.  Usually each year I go out two or three times just to get into the rhythm and build up my shin muscles.  The shins can really get sore from speed walking if you haven't built up those muscles.  I wasn't really sure how I would do with my nagging injuries as well but while I was warming up I felt almost no pain at all so I figured I would just go for it.  Long story short I averaged 10:25/mile (exactly the same as last year) and took home another gold.  In the five years doing this event I have won 4 gold and 1 silver.  The year I took silver I lost by 2 meesly seconds...doh!  Overall very fun event and I am not really feeling any ill effects from it....thank goodness.

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Decided to keep it short and nice and easy this morning after yesterday's walk race event.  I wasn't sure if my muscles would be all cramped up this morning and surprisingly they were pretty good.  I still took it very easy with only 3 miles and about and 8:50 pace and was suprised to find that my nagging injuries were actually feeling a little better this morning.  Maybe it was a result of the wicked hip movements in the walk race :) or maybe it is just a fluke.....whatever it is, I'll take it.  I am going to try and run another easy 3 this evening just to get in 6 for the day.  As of today, Ogden is still on.

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PM

Made it out for another 3 miles this evening.  Ran one with Cory at about 9:30 pace and then ran two more on my own at not much faster.

767 (362.3)

Another easy morning.......only because I woke up late and didn't have time to go any further.  I am still feeling some pretty good soreness from the walk race on Monday.  It's amazing the different muscles you use for walking versus running.  My shin muscles are pretty sore as well as my glutes and hamstrings.  I don't think all the soreness had kicked in by Tuesday when I did my 3 miles in the morning, that's probably why it felt so good.  Hopefully by tomorrow most of the soreness will be gone and I can get back to feeling good.  Hope to run another 3-4 easy miles tonight to make up for waking up late this morning.  Somehow I managed to get just over 100 miles this month.  Not all that great but not the worst either.

768 (70.51)

Finally got up on time this morning and was able log an medium/easy 6 miles.  Didn't make it out last night as planned due to the court of honor running late, high winds, and my legs just didn't feel good.  I'm glad I passed on the extra miles last night because this mornings run felt pretty good for once.  Wanted to go 7-8 miles but decided not to push it just getting back into again.  If I continue to feel good I think Ogden is a go, but like I said before, it's still up in the air until after Saturday's run.  I think I may try to log at least 12 on Saturday and maybe more if I am feeling okay.  I would like to try a couple miles at marathon pace if my body will allow but mostly I just need the base miles at this point.

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Just another relatively easy 7 miles this morning.  Everything still appears to be looking good for Ogden but tommorrow and the subsequent recovery will hopefully tell me all I need to know.  I don't have an exact mileage in mind for tomorrows run but I am thinking something between 10 and 15 miles.  If I am feeling good I will go the whole 15 if not I will do something less but whatever it is I will try to listen to my body and obey......for once.  My sons are getting up around 2:30 am tomorrow morning to go on a band trip down to Disneyland to play in a festival and enjoy the day at Disneyland.  Those lucky buggers......we just got back from disneyland 8 days ago and they get to go back again already.  After I get them off on the bus I think Meg and I are just going to go for our run rather than go back to bed.  I will really need a nap tomorrow.

768 (83.51)

Well, todays long run didn't work out as planned.  I just wasn't feeling it from the very first step and since I told myself I would listen to my body very closely today and not overdo it, I decided to stop when things didn't improve in the first three miles.  It was kind of a bummer to cut it short and I could have kept going but it wasn't worth the additional injury risk so I called it a day and went home to ice.  Meg made it seven before her knee started to have a little pain and she decided to cut her run short to so as to not risk additional injury.  Man we are a couple of sorry souls right now trying to come back from our injuries.  At this point I am thinking Ogden is still up in the air but if I do decided to run it will be at more of a training run pace than BQ pace.

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