Every day is a new day

Testing the calf.  Sore but not painful. Did not want to push it.

Calf injury came back with a vengance.  Jogged the first half then walked/jogged back.  Did no additional damage but it really, really hurt.  Many pains in places I did not know had muscles due to compansation for stride and pain.  Still great race and I know I will get another chance.

Just 5 easy miles around the closed streets near the bridge.  Calf much better but still not running without pain or with a good gait.

Did an easy road run along Hood Canal inreally nice, sunny and warm conditions.  Leg is still not 100 % but works wellenough to run without pain and still seems to be improving.  Continuing lots of stretching routines many times a day.

Felt like a real run in the warm sunny conditions.  Did a .5 mile warm up then ran miles of 8:15 and 7:55 then slowed to about 8:30 pace for the next 5 miles, then finished with a 9:05 cool down mile.  Calf a little sore at the end but not too bad.  Total 8.5 miles in 73 minutes.

Cross train day.  I am trying the run every other day routine for a while to see if it helps with injury issues.  Went to the gym and did a 5K elliptical race (20:10) and finished up with a total of 35 minutes. 

This evening I jogged/walked up to the snow line,( we live at sea level). currently at 1400 feet.  Worked pretty hard with a time of 34:53 to the lookout.  Too much snow to go higher. Thirty five minutes upand 45 back down.

Did three easy miles in Totem Park at about 9:20 pace.  Ran out to Whale Park and back at about 8:55 pace.  Legs pretty sore today so kept it slow for today.

Had no intention of anything but a 7-8 mile easy day.  Even went to the treadmill to ease the effort on the legs.  Don't really know why but did a slow 2.5 at 9:30 pace.  Stopped to stretch out and then did 4.5 at 7:55 pace.  Legs were tired and my knee was bothersome and the form was only fair.  I have decided form means a lot in terms of running efficiency.  Pain and gait changes really hurt aerobicly as well as physically.  Anyway then ran a .5 cool down.  Pain and suffering but at least made 4.5 at an OK pace.

no running.  At regional track meet.  Son qualified for State in 400, 800, 4x400 and 4x800.

Well had two days off so I thought an interval run was in order.  I had not been to the track for a long, long while so decided to go there.  Ran a two mile warm up getting to the track.  Did a real but shortened stretching session, (cold so did not want to get chilled), then did an 8x400 workout with 300 jog.  Did not know what pace to run these at but decided mile pace -10 to20 was about right.  Times were 1:37,1:34, 1:34, 1:35, 1:36, 1:35, 1:38 and 1:36. All were ok except #7 since I think my mile time is about 6;40 right now.  Then ran the two miles back to the gym.  Felt like a good workout.

let's see.. the fallout from track intervals is strained calf and really tired legs.  Recovery run planned.  Started out ok, with legs that were not really into it but I knew that would improve. Calf a little sore but thought a slow run would not hurt it at all.  Wrong!  Calf got slowly worse of course not until I was over 3 miles out.  So gritted teeth a little and ran back.  Pain did not get worse and sometimes disappeared but came back after I sat around for a while. When I got back to the gym I did a long stretch routine and then did 30 minutes on the elliptical.  for 6.5 running and 2 cross training miles.

Cross train day. Did 75 minutes or 10 miles on the elliptical.  Calf is quite sore today.

P.M.  Had some time at the end of the day so I started the process of groundtruthing (sort of) the 1/2 marathon course we will be using next month here in town.  It has always been measured by car w/o using tangents so I am curious as to how far off it is.  I know the 10K I ran a couple of years ago was about 30 seconds fast.  So I ran (jogged?) with the wheel the first 2.5 K. Found out two things, (1) the cone had been placed over a 1/10 too soon for the 5K turnaround and (2) the difference in tangent/roadside stripe was 67 feet.  I had actually expected more.  I ran back, got the car and used the odometer to record car miles for the 2.5K, it turned out to be 1.4 miles on my van with oversize tires.  So twice that should be the 10K turnaround.  I was happy to see it was in fact about .04 miles short which would be about 30 seconds in an out and back race.  Hope to measure the entire course over the next week or so.  We will at least get a reasonably accurate 13.11 miles out of it.

Easy.

At the State track meet in Fairbanks.  Hot, hot and hotter.  Ran a little over a hour with temps 75-80.  Hotter than this guy is used to.

No running but got to see my son anchor the 4x400 relay team that won the State championship.  He scored points in all his events but these four runners were our only kids to stand on the top of the podium all meet.

Knee issues again, although might be manageable.

4.5 miles easy, knee started hurting.  Then 20 minutes on the elliptical.

Only managed a 2 mile run, knee hurts.  Then did 40 minutes on the elliptical.

Knee better today managed 6.5 easy miles at a 9:13 pace.

60 minutes on the elliptical.  Knee hurts and is quite swollen.   Don't know what I did but playing around with gait was not a good idea.  Original knee pain is more or less the same but have three new areas of pain that I have never had before.  The good news is the elliptical does not seem to do any harm.