Sunday, April 23, 2006

Short and sweet

The run, not the dog, though he is kinda cute for a Bagel. He's also quite bossy and demanding for his size. We've been dog sitting him and after only 3 days, he's moved into our bedroom at night, barks at us when we ignore him, run's away when we show him the leash and is just plain silly most of the time when not sleeping.

Did get a short run in that was hardly worth mentioning normally but as my 2nd recovery run and 2 days in a row, well it deserved a few words. Another perfect spring day here with sunny blue sky, light wind and temps in the teens which is absolutely balmy for us sun starved Canucks. Headed out the door after church despite raised eyebrows from my wife 'I thought you ran yesterday? What happened to the rest period or are you back to normal already?' Do you think she'd make a good coach? But then again, how many athletes really listen to their coach and sneak in extra workouts etc? Actually, I've just been dying to try out my new Garmin on all my 'standard' running routes just to see how accurate they are or aren't.

The legs were tight and stiff and the pace was slow but it was sooo nice to jog along at my own pace once more. Did the standard Point loop from the house which I've always called 5 miles and lo and behold it was 5.11 mi which was a nice bonus (hate to think I'd been overestimating all those years)! Included 2 stops, one to give directions to a tourist and another to say hello to a long retired co-worker I haven't seen in years. It was really nice to see Billie as she was going into a restaurant for brunch with her daughter and friends. She remembered me right away (had a stroke a few years ago) and I was able to make her laugh with a little story about work and my running in Boston.

So cruised right along, the legs were a bit sore and got progressively tighter but it was a good run with no after effects worth mentioning. I think I'll be doing alternate days running for the next week and hope to get out with Andrew on the weekend for his last longer run before his marathon at Holyoke. Here's the gory details from the Garmin toy which I'm still figuring out.
So you can see it's hilly and my pace spiked 2x when I stopped. Total for the week was 34 miles of running with the marathon and 9 miles of walking as part of the recovering. Recovery is going well, the feet are more or less healed, the legs are feeling better every day and the spirit is more than willing and anxious to get back into it.

8 comments:

Mike said...

Mike- nice that you are back to running already. I still haven't laced up my running shoes. I plan on giving it a go tomorrow. Also- great race report a few posts back. I can totally relate to the beat-up legs and being strangely annoyed by the crowd support during the later stages of the marathon!

Dawn - Pink Chick Tris said...

Mike. There's an "Auto-stop" setting on the Garmen so that spikes won't look so bad.

I also downloaded an update and it allows you to display more than two lines on the graph. With the update you can show four lines. For example on todays graph I had heart, elevation and pace. Cool stuff.

Thomas said...

The loop might still be 5 miles - the garmin is not 100% accurate, even if most runners seem to treat it as such.

Legs and Wings said...

I've been eye-balling the Garmin for all kinds of reasons. I like how they produce such great information.

And, your coach sounds like my coach. I think they all go to coaching school together.

Olga said...

Looks like you're ready to jump back to training:) What's next?

Unknown said...

ha, my coach (wife) has long been defeated when it comes to rest periods. I always use the, I am training for an extremely long run and in order to finish that run I must run even if I don't want to, excuse. However, the low mileage lately has helped me build up some reserves in the allowable running time that my wife gives me. In the end I know she is the boss. I want to remain married so she holds the ultimate power.

Love2Run said...

Thanks for all the nice comments guys and gals, especially the fun ones about our coaches! Olga, you can see my next race with countdown timer and website link at the top of my blog ;-) I think I'm getting leg 17 which has some steep downhills to get ready for...

D said...

Great Boston Recap! I felt like I was right there with you. Thanks for stopping by my blog!