Last Run

Today was my last run of a long six straight days.  I'm having minor surgery tomorrow, so I wanted to get a good week in.  I'm not sure how long I'm out.  If they find something wrong, it could be a couple months ago.  That will determine my future running plans.  If everything goes well, I'm going to sign up for plenty of upcoming races.

After a challenging loop at Trexler yesterday, I needed an easy recovery run today.  I thought that I'd go out to Camp Olympic in Emmaus and give those trails another try.  Last time I was there, I couldn't find them.  I had a map this time though.  I did find the trail, but it was mostly wide grass around a field.  There is talk of making it a cross country course and I can see why.  That is basically what it is.  I don't like running on cross country courses though because running on grass can be tough.  It is so uneven.

Since I wasn't far from the Parkway, I decided to run there.  I was near the Fish Hatchery, so I parked across the street from there.  There was a small arts festival going on.  I ran on the south side of the creek to start out.  I was going to stay on that side because it seemed cooler and more shaded.  Then I realized there were a lot more hills there.  I wasn't looking for a hill workout, just some easy recovery running.

I turned back and crossed the road onto the other side of the creek.  I cruised along nice and easy.  My legs felt no affects from yesterday.  I recovered very well.  I did some icing and wore both compression socks and shorts.  It was after 11 AM and it was quite warm and humid on that side at that point.  Luckily, I wasn't planning on going very far.

One thing that sucked was that I didn't have my regular running shoes.  I was planning on doing trails, so I only had my trail shoes and the Karhu Strong Ride shoes that I wore there.  The Karhu shoes are kind of narrow in the toe box and I never ran much in them, so I've been using them as walking shoes.  Although they were a little snug, especially with my thicker trails socks; they weren't too bad on this short run.

When I got to the covered bridge, I changed my mind about the hills.  I crossed over and ran the short hill section back to the clubhouse.  That gave me some nice hills at a slow pace.  After the clubhouse I ran on the road for a short distance before turning around.

The turnaround spot was at the two mile point.  I only planned on another mile, two if I felt great.  The last mile of my run was uneventful.  At about two and a half miles, I was tiring a bit, so I decided I'd definitely end the run at three miles.  For the rest of the run, I just concentrated on my form and keeping my elbows in.  My paced picked up a little even though my effort didn't.

I finished up just past the covered bridge.  When I got to the Rout 78 overpass, I decided to do a couple short hills sprints.  The hill under the bridge was very steep.  I ran straight up it for about 10 or 12 seconds each rep.  I only did three of them, but was left exhausted.  I need to incorporate more hill sprint into my plan when I come back.

I don't know when I'll be back to running again.  If all goes well, I'm still taking at least two days off.  I might just come back on Thursday for the group run.  We'll see.  Whenever I come back, I'm going to start by making an actually training plan in addition to signing up for some races.  I hope my layoff isn't too long as I'm itching to run a lot more.

3 miles - 29:53 (9:58 pace)