Not a Fat Ass Report

I still haven't found the time to write a detailed report of gIANt & Gnarls' Excellent Adventure, but since this is pretty much the only place I'm keeping track of my runs these days I'll skip over that and go on to what I've been doing since then. In a roundabout way.

Near the end of our seventh lap of the Fat Ass last weekend Emma and I realized that we should have been picking up the orange flags marking the course as we went. By this point anyone still running had done the course enough times that they could do it blindfolded, and we decided to cut the final lap short to get to 31 miles, no one really wanted to do 32. So this meant that we picked up flags on our 8th and final trip around the mountain, but we left out a 1 mile stretch in the middle and missed a couple flags. By the time we finished there was no way in hell we were going back out to pick up flags so we left them. Sunday we went back out on the course to get those two remaining flags.

I woke up Sunday with achilles tendons like banjo strings and hobbled around for a while until they loosened up. The walk at Bradbury to get the two flags actually felt pretty good and even though it was raining a little bit it still felt nice to be walking in the woods with Emma. I was amazed at the things I noticed while moving at a slower pace, not that we were going particularly fast during the 50k but when walking you defintely take in more of the scenery.

So Sunday and Monday were proper rest days, minimal activity. By Tuesday I was feeling good enough to run again so I went to Twin Brook for the usual run. Jim, James and Chuck were there and we went around the usual summer route minus the first brook crossing, I had a feeling the water was pretty cold. I didn't bring a watch but estimate that we did close to 6 miles at around a 9:30 pace. Whatever, it felt pretty good. The trails were mostly still covered in packed snow and ice, any patches of bare ground were incredibly soft and totally saturated. A nice mix of terrain. It won't be long before Twin Brook is a full blown mud pit, I'm looking forward to it.

Wednesday I thought about running. Does that count for anything? In an effort to allow myself to recover from this 50k I decided another day off would probably do me some good. Generally I was feeling fine but didn't want to get back into training mode too soon like I did after the last one. I've got a few races coming up and I want to be feeling fresh when I get there.

Tonight (Thursday) I ran from work and did two laps of back cove. The roads were wet when I biked to work this morning but by midday things were looking bright and I was really looking forward to getting out in the evening spring sun. No such luck. Late in the afternoon clouds rolled in followed by a thick fog. By the time I hit Back Cove I couldn't see across to the other side. Oh well. The path was full of similarly dissapointed people. I set off at what I thought was an easy pace, everything was feeling good but it turned out to be a little quicker than I had planned. I bumped into a few people I know as I went around so my pace was somewhat varried but I was happy to end the run at 7.4 miles at a 7:31 average pace.

Late in the run I noticed a tighness in my right quad which turned into a big knot right after I stopped running and then got worse as I biked home. The foam roller and stick have helped ease the tightness but a little more work is needed before I run again. I must remind myself not to do anything stupid this weekend.