Monday, February 2, 2015, 5:11 pm

3.22 mi, 28 ft gain, 29:03. In town, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

My legs are mostly recovered from the weekend, except my left achilles is still really tight and a little sore. Just like yesterday, it got worse around 0.4-0.5 mi before it got better.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve felt a bit down today. The run definitely helped.

I still ended up not going as far as I had planned. It did start raining with a little bit of hail, but I actually kind of enjoyed that.

I’ll probably stick with this type of run for a few days. Maybe I’ll go into the 5 mi race this weekend on fresh legs. I’d like to get one more specific training run in for the Lord Hill 50k, probably this weekend or early next week.

Average HR 121 bpm.

 

Tuesday, February 3, 2015, 5:16 pm

4.01 mi, 144 ft gain, 42:48. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red#2.

My left leg is even more sore today, but it’s actually my lower calf and not my achilles. I don’t know if that’s any better or not. It was stiff for most of today’s run. It loosened up for a few minutes around 2.5 mi, but tightened back up less than a mile later.

I had hoped to go longer today, but kept it short again. Everything else is fine, though.

I broke out a new pair of Superior 1.5s from my stockpile. I modified them last night. My other red pair have lost a lot of their cushioning ability, which isn’t unexpected with almost 600 mi on them. The treads still have plenty of life, so I’ll probably still keep them in rotation for less rocky terrain. I took some photos of my modification process and will post something about that soon.

Average HR 121 bpm.

 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015, 5:33 pm

4.02 mi, 143 ft gain, 43:30. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red#2.

Yesterday was pretty rough. After the run, my calf was still bugging me. I broke out the foam roller, did some stretching and some manual massage. I also wore warm socks, used some heat and kept my lower legs under extra covers when I slept last night, all to promote blood flow to the area. Our bodies are capable of amazing things, like healing themselves. The trick is to help the processes.

It was still a little bit sore and tight when I woke up today, but much better. When I started my run this evening, it was fine, loose and not sore at all. My right hamstring is still a little tight, so I’ll do some work on that tonight.

Even though I felt better, I still kept today short and easy. I’d like to go into the 5 mi race this weekend with fresh legs. It’d be great to win one more, but I think I’m already guaranteed top 3 for the series. I know there are lots of people who could have beat me, even locally. But they weren’t racing. And it’s still a big confidence booster.

There wasn’t really anything remarkable about today’s run. It was still great, though. A little rain, no pain, and I felt like I just got started at the end.

Average HR 127 bpm.

 

Thursday, February 5, 2015, 4:12 pm

4.22 mi, 38 ft gain, 38:13. Green belt in town, with dogs. New Balance MR10v2.

The legs were a little heavy today. But it was still pretty nice to get out. Originally I was considering only about 3 mi, but felt decent so I pushed it out to 4 mi.

I stuck to the grass in the park mostly, with a little bit on the gravel access road on the highway side of the tracks.

I picked up the pace toward the end to try to get my legs going ahead of the race on Saturday. It wasn’t great.

Average HR 134 bpm.

 

Friday, February 6, 2015, 3:52 pm

6.33 mi, 265 ft gain, 51:29. To WFSP TH and back, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

My legs felt a lot better today. I didn’t know how far I was going to go until a little over a mile into the run, and I decided to head out to the Wallace Falls parking lot.

It was much easier running today, and I ended up going a little faster than most of my runs.

My HR was a little elevated, though. I either caught another head cold, or the last one has come back. It’s just a mild pressure on the left side of my head around my eye back to my ear, and it mostly goes away later in the day.

Even so, I’m pretty happy with today’s run. I opened it up down the hill from WFSP, reaching close to 4min/mi. I sped up for the last little bit to home as well, not quite as fast, but it wasn’t downhill either.

Bring on the race.

Average HR 143 bpm.

Saturday, February 7, 2015, 9:04 am

1.17 mi, ft gain, 19:18. Frost Eagle Warmup, solo. New Balance MT1010v2.

I ended up parking nearly 0.4 mi away from the parking lot. Lots of people and a small parking lot. I didn’t really have much time for that great of a warmup, but it was better than nothing. I forgot to stop my watch, it was much less time than 19 minutes.

Average HR 134 bpm.

 

Saturday, February 7, 2015, 9:45 am

5 mi, ft gain, 35:57.8. Frost Eagle 5 mi Race, solo. New Balance MT1010v2.

I took the lead from the beginning. Another guy I know passed me for a brief period just so he could say he had the lead. There was a pretty good pack of guys right behind me. I dropped the hammer on the first downhill, and I don’t think many people followed.

The half marathon was started 7 minutes prior to the 5 mi race. The two races shared a good portion of the same course, with the half marathon turning off about 1.5 mi in. I ended up catching and passing quite a few half marathoners. Most of them were great about moving to the side, but a couple weren’t paying attention. When the rest of the people in the group they were in moved over, they decided to take the opportunity to pass right in front of me. It didn’t slow me down much though.

It was pretty muddy and really wet out there, with lots of standing water and some flowing water. I just plowed right through the mud and water. I may have accidentally splashed a few half marathoners.

I came up to one more group just as got to where the race courses diverged. From there out I was pretty much alone. I had put some time on 2nd place, one of my 2 competitors for the series win. I had backed off on the pace a little bit. At about 3 mi I looked back and saw that he had regained a some ground, so I attacked again.

I didn’t attack that much on the climbs, but opened up on some of the descents. I also tried to maintain speed through the turns, mud and puddles. I nearly crashed a couple times pushing the pace. About a mile from the finish, there was a pretty good hill that I tried to bomb down. The trail was fairly straight, but my legs were going all over the place from the mud. I just about did the splits trying to stay upright. I slowed down a little bit at the bottom briefly to make sure everything was alright. I was fine, so I pushed on.

After that, at nearly every turn I’d look back to see if I could see anyone gaining on me, but I didn’t see anyone. When I finally hit the gravel pipeline trail near the end, I saw the runner who wanted to say he had the lead. Apparently he took a wrong turn, and his knee was banged up pretty good from a fall. I asked if he was alright. He was, so I pushed on to the finish.

I won the race, and clinched the series win. Second place was about 45 seconds back, who ended up 3rd in the series. He also pretty handily beat me at the race when I lost my shoe by enough that my shoe didn’t make a difference. The half marathon winner ended up 2nd in the series by 3 points, just 5 points behind me.

I decided not to worry about my HR today and switched to view current pace, and I only looked at that a few times, once at the beginning before the first hill. I saw I was going around 5:40/mi pace and backed down a little. I looked a couple other times just out of curiosity.

Even not worrying about my HR during the race, I still wore the monitor to look over the data afterwards. My average HR was 181 bpm. I’m not sure how accurate this is. It looks like the reading dropped suddenly for a little bit early, then spiked over 200. Even if it is off, It’s probably not by much. My HR hovered around 180 bpm most of the time. My most recent bout of head cold has gotten better, but my HR is still a little elevated because of it. Running by feel and not by HR, I think I was also able to push harder than if I had looked. I may have backed off seeing it that high. I’m starting to get the feel for that edge between uncomfortably fast and blow-up fast. But I have lots more to learn.

Saturday, February 7, 2015, 4:29 pm

3.18 mi, 28 ft gain, 30:04. Around town, with dogs. New Balance MR10v2.

I took the dogs out for a little spin around town before dark. It started raining as soon as we started, but it wasn’t cold, fortunately.

Man, my legs were stiff. They loosened up a little by about 1 mi, but took until about 2 mi to feel ok. The same little spot in my right hamstring that’s been a little bothersome for over a week finally got to the point that I decided I’d do something about it.

This evening I sat my hammy on the foam roller, going back and forth for about 10 minutes. That was not pleasant.

Average HR 135 bpm.

 

Sunday, February 8, 2015, 3:36 pm

11.21 mi, 2307 ft gain, 2:07:03. Upper Wallace Falls via woody trail from home, solo. Altra Superior 1.5 Red#2.

My legs were a little stiff today but not quite as much as yesterday afternoon’s run. I loosened up a couple miles in. I was pretty sore as well, and that didn’t really go away. It wasn’t quite so bad later in the run, though.

This wasn’t exactly what I had planned for today, but it worked based on how I felt after yesterday’s race.

The trails were a little bit busy, but not bad. Most people were on their way back to the TH as I went out. The muscle soreness slowed me down a little. I made it to the Upper falls from the TH in about 33 min. I spent a couple minutes up there watching the waterfall, drinking some water and snacking on some raisins and a couple dates.

Since my legs were still sore, I took it extra easy down the steep, slippery steps near the top. I kept it pretty easy going most of the way down. I just wasn’t quite as surefooted with tired legs and didn’t want to push my luck with the wet conditions. It didn’t rain today, but there was quite a lot of rain over the last several days.

Once I hit less than 1 mi to the TH, I was feeling good again and picked up the pace. On the short road grade section at the end, I even hit 6:40/mi pace and felt good.

I passed 3 guys in the last little stretch who I had seen on my way up just below the Lower falls view point. As I went by, one of them said in a seemingly joking tone, “I hate you”. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

Running the roads back home wasn’t too bad until I turned onto US2. I spent the last 1.5 mi running into a pretty stiff headwind. It only died down briefly a couple times. It was mostly steady, though, and even picked up enough to slow me way down. That’s part of the experience of running outside.

Average HR 143 bpm.

 

Weekly totals: 42 mi, 3311 ft gain