How am I feeling today?
Kind of tired, that working on the brush pile got both my upper body and legs more than I thought it would, so I am not really looking forward to my long run with an already tired body. Oh well, it is just part of the deal, the work in the back 40 work needs to be done and if it interferes a little with my training it is what it is. I am not a professional runner who relies on running to make my living or even a good local runner who is competing for age group bragging rights. I am simply a recreational runner who takes his sport far too seriously at times and then tends to get injured when I do stoopid stuff that resembles what those people are doing. Versus doing the training that is appropriate for where I am physically and need to do in order to stay injury-free, while continuing to improve at a good for me pace.
This is what I am focusing on – not being stoopid and doing the training that is helpful, not hurtful. Along with not worrying about what others are doing for training and attempting to match their “Strava” workouts. Simply because I can’t and don’t need to anymore.
Planned Workout Description:
Type:
- Long Run – 70:00 minutes
I am planning on going over to Bond Brook to do my long run. It does mean some run/walking on the trails in areas where I am not comfortable even running slowly, but that is okay, I am out for the 70:00 minutes of movement and not so worried about how many miles I get in. If I was more interested in the mileage I would head down to the Rail Trail and run 35:00 minutes towards Gardiner and turn around, because I am pretty sure that I would slow down on the way back, even though the plan calls for going a little faster. With the humidity levels expected, I tend to die on the back half of a longer workout in it.
Per Stryd: “Your Long Run today introduces a bit of quality and progression! For the first 30 minutes, run at your normal long run power range. After the 30:00 mark, start a slight progression from 80-88% of your Stryd Auto-Calculated Critical Power for the rest of the run. This slight progression in your long run continues to build duration, but also adds a bit of intensity on top of the great long run routine you’ve been in the past few weeks.”
Today’s Running Focus
- Get it Done
Why am I doing this run?
Long runs give me the opportunity to just relax and keep going even though I might be getting tired. There are all kinds of physiological reasons that are covered in books or articles, but mostly I like long runs more for the mental cleansing that happens for me.
Running on trails brings me to my happy place. I enjoy the focus I need when running trails, I don’t do the woolgathering that I do when run roads or rail trails and stay in the moment to stay upright.
What I Actually Did Today:
Bond Brook Exploration – Not Quite 70:00 minutes, but very close.
There is something about trail running that makes me forget my Stryd pod, this is the second time I have forgotten it on a trail run and I have only done two heheehehe. Oh well, so I don’t get credit for the trail run, but that is okay, it meant that I had one less thing to worry about while running.
The other part was that I had a difficult time figuring out which pair of shoes to use for 70:00 minutes of running. I really didn’t want to use the Skechers Speed TRL and I don’t have another pair of trail shoes right now. When I got to looking around the best option seemed to be the ASICS Magic Speeds. I figured that the carbon plate would protect me a bit from roots and rocks and the outsole has a little bit of bite.
Did that workout go as planned?
I knew that if I ran at Bond Brook that I would run slow, which was the primary purpose of running there. At just over 13:00 minute pace per mile, that means that I ran really slow and did some walking up the hills at times. Not as many miles as I could have gotten if I had run over on the Rail Trail or some other course, but that wasn’t the point of the today’s run, it was to run for 70:00 minutes at an easy pace.
I did meet three mountain bikers and when the last two came down on me, I had to jump off the trail and somehow activated the emergency alert on my watch and I had to quickly deactivate that before the wife got a text saying I needed help. That wouldn’t have been good, luckily, I figured out how to turn it off about 2 seconds before it went off. Technology is great until it isn’t. All I can think of is that as I grabbed the tree to stop me from heading down a pretty steep ravine, that it thought that I fell.
Also some of the trails have changed and they made new ones that I haven’t run on before, so when I say exploration in the title, I wasn’t far off. It has been a while since I ran over at Bond Brook and felt good to run there again.
Injuries/Niggles: Both Achilles towards the end were a bit sore, I am not used to the footing and/or the hills on trails like Bond Brook’s. So it wasn’t totally unexpected and tonight, I iced the left Achilles for a bit to see if that helped and it seemed to.
Weather: Overcast clouds, 70°F, Feels like 72°F, Humidity 88%, Wind 6mph from N. Definitely a sweatfest and it was raining sweat for that last mile.
Shoes: ASICS Magic Speed – They did a LOT better than I expected, the trails were mostly dry and the ASICS did everything I could have asked of them. My feet didn’t bother, but I wouldn’t want to run trails in them all the time, the outsole just isn’t aggressive enough and the upper is rather unstructured for this kind of running. I felt comfortable doing it today at a slower pace in the Magic Speeds, but to increase the pace on trails like Bond Brook’s – two things would have to happen, me getting in better shape and the other, different shoes.
Other Stuff
I did mow the front in the Speed TRLs to see how much they would bother and I wasn’t impressed, they bothered my other Achilles more, so I imagine that they will find their way to the back of the garage for giving away. Too bad they had a good initial run, but the more I ran in them the less impressed I became. Also there is stitching on the inside of the forefoot that was rubbing too much yesterday and while mowing the lawn this afternoon.
Harold Being Harold 
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