Second Wind

Rest.  Enjoyed watching Jamie play in her rare Sunday softball tournament for most of the day.  At least it got me out of counting tithing for the week :)

Last run of April and it's been a good April.  I think my total mileage for the month is around 175, unfortunately my legs are starting to feel it a bit so I plan to scale it back just slightly.  I have been getting back into running shape slowly over the past 4 months and kinda went crazy in April with some long hard weeks for the level of my current fitness.

I can tell I'm getting stronger, but I still feel a bit of the high mileage fatigue.  I think much of my problem lies with the extra 30-35 pounds I am carrying over my previous running weight around 170.  Even at 170 I thought I would have liked to be about 10 pounds lighter.  Weight loss challenge starts at work today and the winner gets $400.  I will probably weigh in around 205 and hope to be at 170ish by the end of three months.  I realize that is an aggresive goal, but I think it's doable with my continued running and cutting back on the calories.

Goal for St. George is to pace Meg to at least a 3:45, idealy a 3:35 and then go watch her run Boston since I think she's tired of waiting for me and I just don't know if I'll ever get there.  Let the St. George training begin....bring on the heat!

Nice start to the new month.  Legs still feel a little icky from the half and I'm still feeling a little bit of soreness from the walk race last week.  Average pace today was around 8:40 which is an improvment but I would still like to get my easy run paces down to around 8:20-8:30.

Had the weigh-in yesterday for the weight loss challenge at work and I weighed in at 205.8.  I plan to be at 170 by St. George marathon so I really have my work cut out for me in the next 5 months...in addition to all the running.

Mid-week longish run.  Kept the pace easy and just plugged along.

Slow and icky today.  Yesterdays 9 miler left the legs feeling a bit weak.  Went in to have an xray on my left foot this morning.  It has been bothering me for months and I have obviously continued to run on it.  I just want to make sure it's nothing too serious as we start to get into the build up for St. George.  I sprained that ankle back in the Las Vegas Ragnar to the point where I had to drop out of my last leg and let Meg finish for me.  Not sure if this pain is related to that injury but it's the only thing I can think of.  It's a pain that runs along the left edge of my left foot almost exactly mid foot.  800mg of ibuprofen at night usually knocks out the pain for my run in the morning but then I get a radiating pain on and off all day at work.  Ice also helps.  Compression wrap puts me on the verge of tears.  Guess I'll just wait for the results of the xray, in the mean time....I run.

Long run today since I'm going up to father and sons (priesthood commemoration...oops!) with the boys.  Not a really long run and not a very good run either.  Legs felt okay, but my breathing and heart rate seemed a bit fast for the pace we were going.  Had to stop and take a sit for a minute around mile nine just to chill.  The final 4 miles after that stop were pretty dang slow.  Not sure exactly what the problem was other than I'm eating less and still very out of shape and it could also be the pollen in the air, buy my allergies aren't bad.  Just one of those things I guess.  Only about 4 minutes faster than the Hurricane half last Saturday on a hilly and windy course.

Going to try to run up at camp tomorrow morning but I always say that and it usually never happens so not holding my breath....although it would be good to get a run in at 8000 feet.  I just never sleep well and always wake up feeling like crap.  Not a big fan of sleeping in a different bed.

Just thought about one other factor that may have played into my problems today.  I was watching some video's on good running form and learned about using a metronome to train yourself to have 180 foot falls per minute.  While I didn't carry my ipod with the metronome app I did focus on my cadence a lot today and tried to increase the turn over from my usuall ploding.  It did take a little more effort to focus on my turnover so that may have contributed.

Self fulfilling prophecy.  Said I probably wouldn't make it out....and didn't.  May not have gone on the best of days as it was very cold and very windy up on the hill.  I slept very little in the back of the Expedition because I was cold all night.  Came home later that morning and slept for a couple of hours in my own bed....nice!