The death of my sister on Friday, kind of took the wind out of my sails and I needed to patch myself back together on Saturday and do a bit of a rest on Sunday. Needless to say it was a tough way to end the week and as a result my running changed around a little, which is okay. Life tends to do that to you and you have to be flexible when it comes to its demands.

Her death did make me focus in even more on things that are important in life and that I need to do a better job on more than a few things.

Especially, the way that I tend to isolate myself from the world at large, which has been made even easier with the pandemic’s need for social/personal distancing and the stay-at-home/stay-away-from others mentality that has developed over the past six months.

That part of the pandemic’s mandates has been too easy for me to adjust to and I am thinking that when all this stuff does calm down again that getting my social mojo back will be more difficult than I thought it would be. I am actually very comfortable staying at home most of the time and rarely seeing people, other than immediate family and the neighbors as we go past one another on the other side of the road. I guess I am an odd duck after all.

My running is starting to look up and the legs are getting back to the normal stuff that I am used to dealing with i.e. the hamstrings, ankles and right shoulder. However, I have been neglecting the strength work that I need to do and will get back to it this coming week. Also I need to start watching what is going down the pie-hole, the after lunch treat and evening snacks are a bit too tasty and my portion control has never been a thing of beauty.

I have slowed down considerably worrying about changing my form and have really focused in on continuing to improve my posture, which was in pretty sad shape. If I run with good posture, I have a feeling that 80-90% of my issues will take care of themselves. That other 10-20%, well I guess I will just have to live with as part of my bodies own adaptations to how my body is held together by baling twine and a prayer.

During the week, I figured out that I hadn’t run from anywhere other than the end of the driveway since March 10th and wrote about it here. Today, I rectified that and drove up to Waterville, got rid of a bunch of old running shoes and ran the route I ran back in March. It just seemed appropriate. Although it was strange running with so much traffic and seeing people walking around with and without masks. Yes, I wore mine when I was around people – I just have to figure out a way to not have my glasses fog up so darn much.

Running this week

Monday – Labor Day. I did the Town Office 5.0 Miler as an easy run. I didn’t bother looking at the splits after the first mile and just ran pretty relaxed. Although I do know that I did slow down going up the last two hills, but at this point what else is new. My time for the 5.0 miles was 47:27 for almost a 9:30 pace, nothing spectacular that is for sure, but I felt good while running so that is more than half the battle. I did what I was supposed to do – run easy and wear some more rubber off the outsoles of my running shoes. Sometimes, well most of the time that should be enough.

Tuesday – No-Track Tuesday 12 x 200 with 200 rests, total of 5.06/46:48/9:15. First speedwork session since July 21st and I definitely felt it. I had thought about doing quarters, but I know that I am not ready for that level of faster pacing yet. It is better to start with smaller goals and build on them, than attempt to do too much and set yourself back even further. We will see how I am feeling tomorrow. All I know is that by the 8th repeat, the heat/humidity feels like 78/80% humidity began to get to me. Although I did race an 18 wheeler who was backing up to my finish spot and beat it. Yeah, I now consider beating a rig that is backing up a big deal, that is how far I need to go to get back to where I want to be, which is okay, after all I did beat the damn thing. hehehe

Wednesday – The Ridges O/B 10K and first run in the Topo Zephyr, 70’s & 85% humidity, but I did really well until 4.0 miles then fell apart. The new shoes did everything I asked of them and I wrote an initial impressions review you can read here. Overall, a nice run. Oh yeah, the legs and hammies were a bit balky to start this run, but came around pretty well once I got going.

Thursday – Middle Road Loop. Pretty much a moderate run where I pushed the hills a little more than I have in a while. The paces were not difficult, but going up the hills it would have been hard to maintain a conversation. My splits were: 1.0-8:44, 2.0-9:01, 3.0-9:03, 4.0-9:12, 5.0-10:18. 46:20/5.04. The first 4.0 miles felt good and then the attack of Blake and Philbrick and the sun finally got to me the last mile. A good run and who knows maybe one of these days I will wear my Zoom Flys around the Middle Road again for a time trial.

Friday – I got word that my younger sister Barb died this morning, after several years of battling complications to her health. It really was not unexpected, but at the same time it still takes the wind out of your sails because you still believe that since she pulled through so many other times that she would this time too. Mary told me to go for a run and I figured I would go down towards Tiffany and run until I felt like turning around. At Davis Dr. I turned and headed back. I didn’t feel like doing Stevens Hill and this would give me a good 5.0 miles, which helped a lot. The Zephyrs did everything I asked of them and are a lot more comfortable with the different shoe laces in them. My mile splits were decent – 1.0-8:57, 2.0-8:42, 3.0-9:49 (lost focus for a bit), 4.0-8:31, 5.0-8:40. Time: 44:42 / 5.0 Miles, Pace 8:56

Saturday – DNR. I just didn’t have anything left, I changed out, forced myself to go through my pre-run routine and agreed with myself, when I got to the end of the driveway, that today was not my day to run. I was emotionally spent and didn’t have the energy to even do a short one.

Sunday – Hannaford-Cool Street 10K Loop. I ran in Waterville for the first time since March 10th and it felt good, but weird at the same time. A lot less hills, but a lot more traffic and people around, so there are trade-offs. I wasn’t attempting to run hard or fast, so I stayed right around a 9:00 minute pace overall. I did stop and talk with the guy that hired me originally at Good-Will Hinckley for about 5:00 minutes and a little later saw a professor from UMA from when I worked there, but I didn’t recognize and figure out who she was until I was about 50 yards up the road. I had a mask on so it was tough for her to recognize me. The hill after 3.0 miles did get me more than I thought and the bottoms of my feet were bothering a little.

Running Shoes

Skechers GoRun Ride 8 – They are getting pretty dirty, so that means that I am using them to run in quite a bit, which is really the plan. The GRR8s are my goto shoes and I tend to reach for them first when looking at the shoe rack.

Nike Zoom Fly SP – Did exactly what I expect from them on my No Track Tuesday run. Although after the run, I changed the lacing pattern slightly to give a little more room to my right forefoot, it wasn’t anything serious, just a bit of a distraction once the feet started to swell a little towards the end of the 12 x 200 repeats.

New Balance Beacon v2 #2 – No runs this week and they will probably linger under the dresser, since I am not really training for anything right now and tempo, faster long runs or treadmill work are not on the horizon at this time.

Topo Zephyr – Got them in Tuesday from REI and they are a little heavier than I thought they would be at 9.3/9.4 ounces, but still in the daily trainer range I prefer. Putting them on around the house they felt very comfortable. I changed out the laces and something that simple made a huge difference for me in how they felt on my foot. If I run too much on tar in them, I notice that the bottom of my feet bother a little too more than I like. Nothing serious, it is either me having to toughen them up or just deal with it if it is the pads underfoot just not having as much fat/cushion in the pads of my feet as I get old.

The REality is That

For me personally, it was a tough week losing Barb. I have sorted through a lot of my emotions and know that it will just take time to work through the rest of them. Until we scatter her ashes closure is pending.

Running is going as well as it can right now and until I figure out what to train for, maintaining 30-40 mile weeks as a good base is what I want to aim for, but I know that I have to get back to my strength work this week and monitoring what I eat a lot better.

Not really the week that I wanted, but I made it through and next week will be better.