30+ DRC Day 410: I'm so tired.

Training is getting more intense and the aches are getting to be more of a bother. This morning I woke up with a bout of plantar fasciitis. I haven't had that for a while, but my guess is the warm up yesterday did me in.

Usually the warm ups the coaches put us through are great. But one element of it yesterday may have caused the PF to kick in again. The pogos. We started with double legged pogos (like jump roping without the rope) and then shifted to single legged pogos. I didn't feel anything until after the warm ups, but my foot was feeling a bit tight.

Last Saturday we had kind of a progress check for our long run. We were to run a trail that we had run back about a month ago and for the same distance from the last time. It was our first hill-work trail and we were to see if we had improved any. The previous run on this trail was a six mile run and I had a pace of 10:48 min/mile. I can tell you I did a LOT of walking near the end of this run the first time.

This past Saturday, I did NO walking and I improved my time on it to 10:35 min/mile. I was a bit dissappointed that it wasn't better, but I wasn't feeling too good anyway. So felt like crap AND improved my time?! Good enough for me.

Monday's track workout was one hell of a workover. I don't know why I was talked into going into the "crazy ladies" (CL) group, but I was. One of jerks (and I mean it in as much as loving way as possible) had convinced me by joining our group and told me I NEEDED to move up to the faster group.

FYI: Because we have such a wide range of ability levels training, we are separated into different groups according to what our goal end-time is going to be at the Salinas Valley Half Marathon. By now we should know where we are in our groups.

I was supposed to be in the 2:15 to 2:20 group, but they were going too slow. So I moved up a group. But that group got shorter and shorter each week. Unfortunately for me, I was struggling to keep up . . . but I was keeping up (dammit).

Usually there are about 10 of us in the group and it's only me and this other guy to make up for the lack of testosterone. But both of us are fighting tooth and NAIL to keep up with this uber-competitive group of ladies! The other guy is nearly the youngest one of the group (mid-30's) and the ladies are about my age (39+) or older!

Now, the lady who convinced me to go back to the CL's stuck around for the first mile then dropped back to a slower group. I should have followed her back to the group behind us, but I didn't remember that the CL's could actually keep up that stinkin' pace!

If you keep up with my DailyMile, you'll have noticed the workout for Monday (07/15/2013). I've never been able to keep up that kind of pace for that long. Those are fast mile times for me. 8:15 to 8:25 for the first three miles. I dropped a minute each mile after to around a 9:30 average for the last two miles). But I somehow made it.

Yesterday wasn't as hard, but the pace was much faster for all four miles. But they were broken up into 400 meters with a 100 meter (1 minute walk) rest. My left calf and my right foot wanted to cramp up on me around the last 5 laps, though. The calf I was able to relax through. My foot as well, but I knew it wasn't a good sign. It started to stiffen up on me and kinda ache after I cooled down enough. After the run, I stretched about 10 minutes. I should have focused on my foot more.

Today I am BEAT! I'm going to try to pull out those 3 requisite miles (supposed to be four). I tried to sleep last night, but my legs were too worked up still. I popped a couple of magnesium pills to help relax and it helped a bit. Tonight should be much better.

Saturday sees another long run near the beach and it's supposed to be 10 miles.

God willing and the creeks don't rise.

GD

p.s.
too sore, too tired. run smiley :)