Much Cooler – Friday – July 2, 2021

How am I feeling today?

This morning the left Achilles is a bit grumpy. It didn’t like the two hours of mowing lawn yesterday afternoon, after some testing of the shoes in the morning, and let me know about it last night and again I got up this morning. After doing my morning eccentric calf drops, it seemed to relax a little and is giving me hope that I will get my long run in as planned.

Planned Workout Description: 

Type: 

• 70:00 minute – Long Run

Today’s Running Focus

• Listen to the body

Why am I doing this run?

The long run is a main staple in training and is your longest continuous effort in the training week. The goal for this run is to practice extending duration and increasing your time spent running. Over the course of the training plan this run will build in duration and slightly vary in intensity.

Yesterday’s run showed me that I need to work more on my stamina, which means getting back into the routine of doing weekly long runs. Yes, they are on the Stryd schedule, but I need to work on stretching out the time/distance a little more than their 5K plan calls for (60:00 to 70:00 minutes isn’t quite long enough). I know me, and how important the long run is to build up my stamina even when I am focusing on the 5K. I would like to get my long runs up to double-digits sometime in August and keep them there through most of the Winter. I will be smart, but I will get there.

What I Actually Did Today: 

I was going to do my long run down at Bond Brook Trails today, but with the rain and the Achilles being a bit grumpy, I am not feeling the need to run on trails this morning. I haven’t been doing a lot of trail running yet and am not in good enough shape to chance the slippery spots and hill work that is a part of doing Bond Brook. I imagine that I will run out towards Goodhue and do whatever the Achilles feels like doing this morning. I would like to get in over 7.0 miles total for the planned 70:00 minutes, but we will see. Either way, I am going to go a bit slower and enjoy the rain and cooler weather.

I did the Goodhue O/B for just over 70:00 minutes. I kind of procrastinated going, because I wasn’t sure if the Achilles was going to be overly grumpy or not. Turns out I didn’t need to have worried, it felt good enough that I wasn’t overly tempted to turn around before I got to Goodhue. That is always the problem on an out and back course, you are always tempted to turn early, especially when nursing a body part that has been grumpy lately. I made it through the temptation, by running past the turn points and telling myself I would check-in again at the next turn spot. 

Did that workout go as planned?

Pretty much as planned, I started out easy, kept it comfortable entire way and didn’t push the pace until the last quarter-mile. I did have to play some mental games in a couple of places, but that is pretty normal on a longer run.

Injuries/Niggles: The Achilles did better than I thought it would and didn’t really start to grumble until I came up Stevens Hill and I had less than a mile to go. The usual problems with the right foot didn’t happen, I used the Injinji socks in combo with the Reebok Energy 2s, so that might be something to keep in mind. I kept thinking during the last couple of miles, if the Achilles was doing better, how much easier these runs would be…hopefully that will be the way it is sooner than later.

Weather: Light rain, 55°F, Feels like 51°F, Humidity 94%, Wind 9mph from NE. Just about perfect running weather for me, cool enough to not overheat, but warm enough for shorts and I could have gotten away with a short sleeve top if I had wanted. I wore a long sleeve top just because I get cold so damn easy now. 

Shoes: Reebok Floatride Forever Energy 2 – No complaints or issues with the shoes, good traction on the wet roads both dirt and tar, the right foot didn’t bother and I am very impressed so far with how they are doing for me.

Other Stuff

In the afternoon, I did cut down and remove a couple of thorn trees that were about 25’ tall. They demanded blood whenever I would get close to them, which is not something that I appreciated. Especially, when I was hot, sweaty and tired while mowing or weed whacking. So even though it was misting out, they came down and went away into the brush pile.

I have to admit that the weather was a bit of shock to the system after so many days in the ‘80s and ‘90s. However, it did feel pretty good to not overheat on the run.