Running On Tired Legs

Yesterday's run left me feeling pretty tired, but I did a good job of refueling afterwards and I woke up feeling good this morning (no signs of shin splints). I decided to wait until the afternoon to do my run, partly to allow it to warm up a bit outside but also because Emma and I still have a lot of unpacking to do, and yardwork. For some reason I had the hardest time deciding what kind of a run I wanted to do today, I knew I wanted to get in about 10, but couldn't decide where to go. In the interest of time I eventually decided that I would hit the roads, I figured a 10 mile trail run could take me close to 2 hours. So I decided on a 9.6 mile road loop from home, which from now on I will refer to as the K-9 loop because the map reminds Mary of K-9 from Dr. Who.

I didn't intend for this to be a difficult workout, since I got one in yesterday, but once I got going I was feeling pretty good and I decided that in the interest of getting in some solid training for the Stone Cat 50 miler I would push the pace a little bit to get used to the feeling of running on tired legs. I was really surprised to find that after the second mile I was feeling really good and there were no lingering effects from yesterday's marathon effort.

SPLITS:

7:52 - downhill, getting loosened up
7:52 - uphill, hard work
7:30 - flat
7:23 - flat, comfortable cruising speed
7:09 - downhill
7:23 - killer uphill
7:15 - flat, but recovering from mile 6
7:03 - downhill
4:41 - 0.6 mile uphill
6:55 - up, then downhill finish

This run really left me with a good feeling about my training, I just hope I can hold it together for the next month. I really want to do well at Stone Cat, and being a relatively flat course (for a trail ultra) I figured that the road miles would help. I also plan to run the MTC 50K race that Erik puts on in October, it's a road race, but should be a good last long run before Stone Cat. If all goes well I should be able to turn out a good PR for 50 miles, Stone Cat was my first 50 two years ago, I ran 10 hours 10 minutes and I'd like to think I could take at least an hour off of that time this year.

time: 1:11:09
distance: 9.65 miles
pace: 7:22

weather: 70 degrees, clear sky, beautiful

gear: Saucony Grid Sinister, Balega socks, shorts, t-shirt, Fuel Belt