April 5, 2011 - 9:26 pm
The length of tonight’s run wasn’t really decided until I walked out the door to start it. I decided on 6 miles so that I could get in a longer run (relative to what I’ve been doing since coming back), but not overdo it too much.
The pace tonight was quite a bit faster than it should have been. I started with a 7:24 mile and slowed down a bit from there, but I was still at about 7:41 average by the end. I didn’t feel terribly energetic throughout the run, but I still had plenty left at the end and wasn’t pushing myself. However, I don’t think I would have had enough left to make it past 10 miles without struggling.
The real good news though is that I got through the run with only minimal pain, definitely a lot less than on Sunday. That’s probably the most important thing. I didn’t feel 100%, but probably around 85-90%.
April 3, 2011 - 6:00 pm
If I’m going to to run this half marathon in two weeks, I’ve got to get through some long runs, right? I set out with a plan to do 9 miles today. I figured that with 12 miles next weekend would get me good enough to get through the race.
I got through 2-3 miles without much pain, but then the tendinitis started to creep up a bit. The first four miles were very slow to help just warm up, but I picked it up a little after that while paying attention to the state of my ankle. The pain seemed to subside a bit by the 7th or 8th mile, but it was still there a little and was a bit more intermittent later on. I knew this run wouldn’t be pain free, but it was better than my run last weekend, so that’s a plus.
Since the overall pace was pretty slow, I was able to do an extra mile and still have plenty left in me. I wasn’t very fatigued at all, which is a good sign for the race, and I never had trouble breathing. If I had run under an 8 minute/mile the entire time, I don’t know if I could say the same.
