Running Free

I've been traveling most of the last two days, so really no time to blog.  Plus, we decided to go from renting our house in Colorado to selling it in the span of about 30 minutes on Tuesday night, and ended up with about 15 showings in the last two days and now with multiple offers.  Life is crazy!  But, time to focus on running.  Wednesday was just a long, long travel day.  Fun, though, with my wife and daughter and all of the housing stuff while in the car.  Yesterday, I woke up in Cedar City, Utah.  Put on my running shoes and went outside.  First of all, it was nice to not have my garmin on.  It was also nice to have absolutely no idea as to where I was.  I look up, saw the red rock mountains and just started running in that direction.  I quickly came across a war veterans memorial park and saw a bike path nearby.  Followed the bike path up the road and into a gorgeous canyon.  It was all uphill, but I just got locked into a moderate effort, breathing every fourth step and kept going.  After a little while, I felt like walking briefly, which I did, and then started running again.  My legs felt fine, my body felt fine.  My mind felt fine.  Let my mind wander from idea to idea, though after a little while decided not to think, just to run.  This will be freeing!  I decided to turn back, figuring I'd probably run a few miles, and started back downhill.  Ironically, I now realized that I had been running uphill with a tailwind, and now was running downhill with a headwind.  I let my effort actually increase a little and tried to keep a good compact stride.  As I got about 2/3 of the way down the hill, my quads suddenly started feeling funny.  This was similar to the other day.  It was sort of a tightness/aching in both quads.  I figured that my body was speaking to me.  It's really funny, recovering from an ironman.  Just 11 days out from the race, the physiology would suggest that I am still healing.  My muscles somehow were telling me that I'd run enough and it was time to rest.  My coach had suggested staying under one hour of running right now.  My body was telling me to stop after about 40-45 minutes.  I walked briefly, then started running again.  I was ok, but could feel that it was soon time to finish.  Fortunately, or rather, as my body had clearly planned, I was back at the hotel.  It's a bit of a shame that I've been traveling this week, without access to a good pool or my bike.  My body would love swimming right now.  Fortunately, we've had a change in plans and I'll actually be at our new house this afternoon.  I will be swimming today!  I will be cycling this weekend.  Without a watch:)