Just like clockwork

Another day and another run and it's starting to feel like things are more or less back to normal. I think the cautious approach since Boston has been good in avoiding the 'Injury Bug' which is almost as bad as the 'Running Bug' but only more irritating on the victims. In my rundown of unfortunates last post I forgot to mention Hunter who's been down with something lately (hayfever season is worse than ever this year I've heard); get well soon!

Weird, just had some strange issues with editing my blog but now back to normal I hope. For some reason I couldn't type things in and then it went and published itself without me doing it intentionally!?

But back to the running recovery trail:

Monday - a glorious rest day; biked to and from work but was a bit sore and tired from Sunday's little 12 mile jaunt

Tues - ran an easy 5 mile Point loop from home after work on a glorious sunny St. Andrews day. I didn't quite get out of the blocks right away on getting home because A & J were having 'issues' with our lawn tractor and needed help from Mr. Fixit. It seemed that a piece of grass had lodged on the muffler and they thought it was going to catch fire with all the smoke but no harm done and A was mowing away in no time. The run went well despite feeling a bit tired and managed about 7:50 pace. Hip was only a dull ache and the feet are healed up fairly well.

Weds - 1st run from work since the marathon and also the 1st test of the Garmin on my 'standard Point loop' from there. What I'd always called 5.5 mile turned out to be 6.2 and the pace came in at 7:42 on what was intended to be easy pace. Actually felt decent and picked up a bit in the 2nd half which was pouring rain and got soaked (but loved it! it was warm 12C rain ;-)

Thurs (today) - finally got up the gumption to try a harder pace run. Started out with no specific plan in mind except to do 30 minutes out at an easy pace and then return at a faster pace. But once you're on the road then new options present themselves. At 30 min it was close to 4 miles so pushed on a bit further for 4 before turning and heading for home. Instead of using pace I just used effort and heartrate for the return leg, trying to keep it around 150 which is the 90% of max for me. You can see all the gory details in the busy plot from my toy here below. You can see the following:

• top panel with details of the run and splits
• green line is the elevation profile; it was a hilly run with lots of steep hills
• the reddish line is the % of max heartrate and the bands are the different zones; you can see it was low in the 1st 4 miles (except for the blips) and then in zone 4 (80-90%) and zone 5 (90%+) during the 2nd 1/2
• the blue line is speed in mph and was higher but varied with the terrain
• cool eh? (if you like geeky toys and lots of data)

The end result was good with the return leg in 28:00 at 7:02 pace and HR pretty steady at 85-90% plus for most of it. Didn't look at the watch much cause I was too busy counting steps and breathing and trying to keep up the effort. It's nice to run faster but it's also hard work!

Feeling fine after the run but got a bit stiff at the desk after the run. Need to remember to drink more before the run and to get up for short breaks more often, especially after harder runs.