I Like Hike.

Last week I made the prophetic statement: "some pretty intense running this week...I feel pushed to the limit of how much i can absorb".



As it happened I should have listened to myself, instead I pushed myself too hard. On Tuesday I did my 4x800 Yasso repeats at 3:50 each and I could really feel it in my legs on the trot back home. My left ITB was not happy.


So the next day I did cross training, but I did 15 minutes of intense stairmastering and that tired out all the other muscles in my legs that weren't already tired.


THEN, just to finish the job, we had three successive evenings of cooking for friends, which involved being on my feet for a few hours at a stretch. Fun but left my legs feeling like they'd run a marathon.


The combination of all that meant that on Saturday, after my 5-ish mile slow recovery run I was wiped out during the day. Today, (Sunday) I was supposed to do a 13 mile run but bagged that and shifted (at Toni's suggestion) to a wonderful hike on Russian Ridge.

Toni on Borel Hill (2500' above the bay)

That was a good idea 8).

Underfed Coyote

We had perfect weather and it really helped loosen up the tired legs. 








Once again we learn the hard way to LISTEN UP when your body is trying to tell you something rather than just pushing ahead with a fixed schedule.


I don't think I have "over-training syndrome" or anything so fancy, I think i just beat up on my leg muscles too much. My HR is not higher than normal, in fact I recorded a new low for resting HR of 46 sitting at my desk this week.


I really have to remember that hard running has to be done in moderation, especially when I'm also increasing mileage!


No running tomorrow and then an easy 5 on Tuesday. After that we'll see.


In other news, you'll notice a new entry called  "ZombieRunner bay trail marathon" to my upcoming races list. I'm so excited to run this race because it takes place on my favorite trails over in the baylands. It's also cheap ($60) and small like a lot of trail runs.


You may wonder why i have so many marathons stacked up on my list. Reason: I've decided to see what it's like running a marathon every 4 to 6 weeks. 


Mind you, I plan to run most of these marathons SLOWLY, not all-out...think more like a slightly longer sunday run. This idea seems to work for a lot of recreational marathoners, many of then much older than I am, so I thought I'd try it. I suspect I'll run them at about 10:00 min/mile for flat ones, slower for hilly ones. 


One side benefit of that is it will give me a lot more experience actually running races so that it becomes less of a big deal. It will also get me used to the idea of running a race without expecting to try to PR every single time: this not a realistic way to think. 


And, I get to harvest more fun from my hobby 8)


N.B: The stupid company that took the Long Beach photos finally came through with my photos, here's my favorite (a cropped version is now my profile photo). I like it when they can catch me in the air.