Out of whack

Wow, sometimes I just forget to write posts or something.

Things have been going alright...well, kind of. Last Friday my knee started bugging me again, but this time it's the inside and not the outside. Saturday it felt ok when I did 7, and then I took a couple days off. Tuesday I did intervals on the river trail and it was ok....not good but not bad. I was supposed to do 5 x 800 meters, but it ended up that I did 3 mile repeats (5:53, 5:57, 5:53) before realizing that I was actually doing miles and not 800s.....oops.... oh well, I got some good speedwork in anyway. The next day my knee was really bugging me and Thursday I tried to run a mile. That was probably the worst mile I have done since I've gotten back into running this summer. Now both of my knees were bugging me in the same spot and my ankles were hurting a bit too. So, I saw Todd on Saturday morning before work and he analyzed what I was doing...he said my running gait looked great, and it was actually the way I was doing the alignment exercises on my own that were causing the strain on my knees. So we fixed all that, and now things are feeling much better...though I'm gonna hold off on running til at least Tuesday.

This morning I went about an hour south of here to watch a sprint triathlon because some of my buddies were participating...and because I've never seen one before. It was honestly pretty cool, and it makes me want to do one sometime. If only I could get endurance while swimming....yea. It was an 800m swim in a lake, a 13 mile bike ride, and a 4 mile run to top it off. Sounds like fun, eh?

The pic in this post is of Jake rocking the Playmakers jersey and winning Ele's Race 5K last weekend. Nice....

23 years young

Hooray, I turn 23 tomorrow!

The sidewalk sale came and went in a hurry. Today when I was working I took a step back and thought "Wow, that went by so fast..." Believe it or not, we sold 5,000 pairs of shoes on the first day (Thursday) and ended up selling 10,005 pairs of shoes thru the whole weekend. And that's also on top of all the apparel and accessories and stuff. So you can imagine how busy it was!

Let's see...Thursday I went 5 and Friday I went 4. The most ironic part about Friday is that I was walking right after I finished, and noticed something crawling across the street ahead of me. It was after sundown so I couldn't tell right away, but eventually I realized a black cat was crossing my path. On Friday the 13th. Technically aren't I lucky for seeing that on that day?

Sunday I tried 7, which is my longest so far since I've gotten back in to running. It actually went ok...though I did go a little too fast. Try 6:51 pace. Oh well, at least I made it....now I gotta work on the whole pacing thing. I started from my parents' house for the run and part of the route went winding through my neighborhood. At one point I passed by the house where one of my childhood friends used to live, and it brought back so many memories. We used to play basketball on his driveway all the time back in 5th grade before he moved away, and now the pole is all rusty and the net is all frayed and hanging by some loose ends. Oh memories...

Yesterday during the day I also got progressively sicker and sicker. It sucks now because I have a massive head cold or something. I tried 3 miles tonight and it sucked because I could hardly breathe. Oh well, let's hope I feel better soon...

That's disgusting

I like to think I've been keeping myself busy lately.

I think I'm gonna make this post short and sweet. Tomorrow is the first day (of four) of the semi-annual sidewalk sale at the store, and I gotta be there bright and early...which means I need my rest for a day of fast action! Last week in review:

Ran 3 miles on Tues 7/3, stretched it into 4 miles on Thursday the 5th. That felt pretty good, it was the first time I had done 4 miles and everything went as planned. Friday I followed it with an easy 3 miler. A couple days ago on Sunday I tried my hand at 5 miles, and it was the greatest and most disgusting thing ever. Great because I made it without anything hurting and honestly felt like I was gliding at a couple points, and disgusting because I went at 10pm and it was still 85 degrees and humid as heck. Oh well....I finished in 34:15, which is 6:51 pace and a little faster than I wanted to go, but it still felt pretty good. Yesterday I went 4 and tried to go a bit slower but still ended up being around 7:20 pace. Aaaaaaannnnnnndddddddd today the top of my right foot hurt a little, so I'm definitely going to be paying attention to that in the coming days.

Time to sleep! Zzzzzzzzz....

Starting over

Here I am, back to my Monday night shenanigans again.

Guess what....I ran 10 miles in the last week! I ran two each on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and each of those runs made my calves pretty sore since this new gait stresses the muscles more rather than the bone. I also had another mile mixed in there throughout the day on Wednesday as Todd was helping me fix some alignment issues, but I was pretty much going to be stuck on 2 miles a day until my calves could handle it. Well, apparently that was yesterday...they felt a lot better and stronger during the days on Saturday and Sunday, so last night I sauntered out for a 3 mile run. Everything went great...the calves were a tad sore, but not nearly as bad as they had been. The route I ran was the shortened version of my usual campus run along the river and it was also the first time I had run that path since....oh....February? So you can imagine how giddy I was.

I really think I'm getting the hang of this new gait, and it's getting me REALLY excited. The cool thing about all of it is how much more efficient I believe I am. Before, my average run would be about 7:20 or so per mile, and now I'm putting in the same perceived effort and it's getting me 6:50 - 7:00 minutes per mile. Plus with my three mile run last night, I barely felt gassed at all. It all just adds ammo to those positive thoughts.

Hmmmm what else... there's really nothing else new going on with me. Lately it seems that all I do is eat, work, sleep, and repeat. But there's nothing wrong with that.....right?