I ran 15 miles on Thursday, will a 5K in the middle. I swam 40 minutes straight on Friday as recovery. Yesterday I rode my bike 81 miles with 6000 feet of climbing (5 hours and 15 minutes). Today was another long run. I ran with two people from my tri club and we ran a trail to the beach. The run itself was about 16 miles. The first half was mostly downhill, the second half mostly uphill.
Let me start with the humor. Or, perhaps, not so humorous. It turned out that the trail had a few streams that we had to ford. On the way out, I managed to step on rocks, although I did put my foot in the stream once. Not too big of a deal. On the way back, on the last stream crossing, I slipped. As I slipped, I felt my left ribcage, where I'd been injured a few months ago, strain. I literally felt the tissues stretching. First of all, I hope it was just scar tissue from my recent injury. On a certain level, the injury wasn't as bad as what happened a few months ago. I didn't fall, I don't think my rib popped out of place. It hurt a little, and that hurt persisted through the remained of the run back, which was all uphill. Fortunately, it didn't hurt too much, and it didn't limit my breathing or movement.
I realized that I'm three weeks from Santa Rosa. Of course I need to injure myself today. Hopefully, this injury is minimal and won't impact my training. The next few days will tell me that. I'm not as injured as I was so hopefully I'll still be able to swim and bike for the next few days. Since I've run 39 miles in the past three days, a few days off from running won't really hurt. In fact that's the coolest part of all this. The trail run was 15.6 miles. I drove home, changed my shoes and did three more miles, all up and down, to get me to 18.6 miles for the day. The rib hurt a bit during this, as I'd probably cooled down a bit, but it was doable. I showered, ate and then took a nap. When I woke up my legs felt fine! My rib still hurt, but my legs felt fine. Pretty nice feeling after the training I've put in the past few days.
Now, the run itself. It's remarkable how much it helps to run with other people. For most of the run, I was conversational, and keeping about an 8:30 pace (gradual downhill). On the uphill run back, until the very steepest section, I kept a 9:30 pace. I wasn't trying to run too fast or too hard, but I also wasn't trying to run too easy. This goes to my question from yesterday's blog. I ran nearly 34 miles over the last three days at 9:30 pace. Those runs included over 2,000 feet of climbing. On a flat course, there's no reason that I can't be running at an 8:30 pace. I just have to do it. In the meantime, I'll laugh at the fact that I managed to injure myself three weeks from my next race. So, what's new?
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