Thursday, July 17, 2008

Slowing Down

It was kind of a strange run this morning after yesterday's disaster in the form of a slow recovery run instead of the planned 14 miles. I got sidetracked early on with a trip to Calais at 6am to help MC with the re-measurement of the Calais-St. Stephen Johnson's International 5 mile race course. We spent most of the morning trying to do our calibration and bike ride but were out by 7.0 meters at the end of 5 miles. The allowable discrepancy is 6.4 m and so this means we have to do it all over again!!! Grrrr!

Anyway, I got home around noon and the temperature was hovering around 28C/82F and humid and so I canned the long run in place of a short 5 mile recovery effort which went poorly. The legs were not responding and it was an effort just doing my easy recovery loop. At least the dip in the pond at the end.
Today was a different story as I was able to sleep in till 7:45am and then get geared up for a cooler morning run. Temps were between 17-20C/63-68F with light winds and bright sunshine.
I stayed off the pavement as much as possible and hit the trails and paths around town (see above) and even crossed over to Minister's Island before the tide covered over the access road. However, my pace started off slow (9:00+/mile) and just seemed to stay in that groove. My legs felt OK (not sore or tired) but they just didn't have any spring today. Oh well, it was still a very nice relaxing effort and I felt good until the last mile or 2 when things started to get tiring. A decent run in the books and then on to more yard work...
And the yard is looking quite spiffy. Here's another shot looking back toward the famous gazebo. One more day until the big tour!

July 16
Training: 5 miles easy; grumpy on tired legs (8:20 pace) 6/10
Health: legs tired and very warm late in day 26C/80F 7/10
Stretching: zilch, nada, get crackin' there will ya!

July 17
Training: 14 miles (8:55 pace) on a warmish morning in St Andrews (20C/68F); legs felt OK but the pace stayed slow (2 bottles of water) 7/10
Health: legs with no zip and sore butt at end of run 6/10
Stretching: none lately but promise to be good tonite while watching 'Le Tour'

Cya later!

5 comments:

Grellan said...

Your garden/yard is looking very good. I'm feeling guilty - better take a few days off to sort mine out. Le Tour is certainly worth watching. How those guy do it (EPO excepting)I don't know. Keep up the stretching!

DawnB said...

my week is going ok but not the way it should be but I'm ok with it because next week is a new one.

Your garden is beautiful

Unknown said...

The pictures of the yard do look nice. We have been fiddling with the flowers, but ignoring some of the weeds and clipping that needs to be done. Luckily, I don't have anyone coming to view our yard anytime soon. I hope the spring in the legs comes back to you soon.

Garry said...

Your yard is looking great. Good luck with the big tour.
Stop blowing off the stretching! ;)

UMaine Cooperative Extension said...

I'll slow down when you start stretching :)

Andrew must have put you up to that comment. Either that or you've been spendinf far too much time with him. Sustained exposure to his bad jokes can do strange things to a man...