Recovery Week and Off to College

Well, after arriving home very late on Sunday night (actually Monday morning) and being very tired and sore on Monday itself, I decided not to run.  It would not have served me well especially since I needed to catch up on work as Shannon and I were set to drive to Boston and take her back to school on Tuesday.  Wise decision as my quads (only a little), glutes, and calves were very tight and it made for an interesting 10 hrs in the car, but we made it.  Hard to believe that my little girl is not only legal but also a Junior in college.  Yes, most definitely, how time flies.  We had a good and easy drive and then spent all day Wednesday moving in, setting up her room with her roomie and then have a wonderful sushi dinner on Newbury St before I had to fly back on Thursday.  I did get in a run on Wednesday morning in Natick (my parents) and I loosened up over those 5 miles which was great.  It was a warm and humid run even at 7:30 am as summer decided to re-appear this past week. After returning on Thursday, I ran an ok 5 in the warm temps in Cleveland, and I was a bit stressed thinking that my long run would be tough.  We left for Chautauqua to close up the house and bring in the boat on Friday afternoon, and I was very pleased to have a solid 13.5 mile (2 hrs) over the hills here.  I realized that the hills were now feeling routine unlike what they felt like in June (even if they are still big enough to not allow you to run them fast) and the run felt great even in the warmer temps (65F and humidity 95%).  We had not seen weather like this all summer.  I was happy that I was feeling good but I did laugh thinking about how "fast" I ran my legs at Hood to Coast just a week ago.  It is a wonder what a little adrenaline can do for ones running.  I knew I had trained well since I was feeling good the last week, but today there was no way I could have run those time.

Speaking of my four legs at Hood to Coast last weekend, I am most pleased realizing that I averaged just under 8 min per mile for the 4 of them - on 4 hrs of sleep (in a minivan) and with poor nutrition (chocolate milk, nuun, water, a chicken wrap, beef jerkie, and chex mix!).  Our team ended up 469th out of 1050 which was an awesome reward for our hard work as well.  I wonder just how fast we may have been without the traffic issues, but then again, many of the teams behind us would have been faster too.  The criticism on FB is rampant regarding the two major exchanges (23 to 24 and 30) where things completely seemed to break down.  Having run the race before, I might have to agree that maybe 1050 teams are too many for those beautiful back roads in the Oregon countryside.  I know that HTC wants to remain the "Mother of all Relays", but sometimes, less is definitely more.  The posts on FB seemed to indicate that even the fastest teams were trapped in the traffic and many a runner ran extra miles much like members of our team did.  It was still a real awesome time and I am considering joining some of them for a Ragnar relay in the Florida Keys in early February.  My only fears are; 1) that I might not get there due to weather, 2) I miht not be able to really train due to weather.  If the almanac be right, it is supposed to be another tough one and it looks like I might be running a lot of miles inside once again.    Just to keep the memory alive, here is a photo of the team right before our start:

You can see me proudly wearing my Run Ohio shirt just to make sure we were represented in a sea of Georgia red.

After this weekend, it will be back to Ohio for me, so it was great to get in these last couple of days of hill running.  Of course, my next race is the Erie Half Marathon at Presque Isle and that is a flat course. I hope to be able to jump back into some speedwork this week as I decided not to run the 1000 m repeats on Thursday since I was so tired after so much travel and so little sleep.  This morning's run proved that it was the right choice.