New Shoe Good

I've been reduced to weekly recaps. I wish I had more (or shorter) posts, but this is the way it is.

I had Physical Therapy on Monday and Friday. The ITBS felt really good after not having Jeff, the PT, beating me up since Wednesday last week. I've actually gotten worse at doing a couple of the single leg balance exercised they have me doing. When I left Friday I was initially approved to run 30 minutes this weekend. Say what?? I negotiated for an hour, but ultimately ran the 12 I had planned. That probably turned out to be more like 2 hours. Oops!

Tuesday I ran 3.5 miles from home. I wore the new Brooks Adrenaline GTS 9. It was a good run. It felt a little like the old days. My pace was 9:25, about the same as last Saturday's run, but this run felt "new shoe good."

Wednesday I took the day off and realized later in the evening, after dinner and settling in, that I wouldn't be able to run on Thursday or Friday due to prior commitments. I should have run but I didn't.

Saturday, I met the Cruisers and my friend Terry for a 12 mile run in Huntington Beach. Terry and I ran together using a 5:1 run:walk interval. Around mile 9, my right IT was sending me signals that it had had enough for the day. I stuck it out and made it the whole 12 miles. The IT has since calmed down but the quad/hip flexor is more concerning. I'd mentioned this to the PT on Monday. Friday they gave me some extra exercises to help strengthen that area.

Sunday I had an appointment with yet another PT. This time it was my personal trainer. I decided to run to and from the appointment. The gym is about 2 miles from home. The trainer always has me do some aerobic warm up before starting the strength session. I figured the 2 mile run would be plenty of warm up. What I didn't expect was how difficult the run home would be after the strength training. The run was made somewhat more difficult by the summer-like heat wave we had this weekend. It was 80 degrees by 10:00 a.m. The new shoes weren't much help this time around.

Later in the day after doing some chores at home I headed over to Bonelli for my 5 mile walk. I ended up sharing the trail with somewhere around 200 mountain bikers. I didn't realize it but today was the first race in the US Cup Mountain Bike Series. I made it about 2/3 of the way around my loop before meeting the racers head on. I had to step off the trail for several minutes to let them all pass by. I gathered up 5 dropped water bottles on my way back. The riders were on their way around for loop #2 as I finished up my walk.

I ended February with 71.9 miles, nearly double what I achieved in January. Still pitiful by 2007 standards but heading in the right direction. I ended the week with 19.5 miles, a slight decrease from last week.

My intentions are to scale back the long run next week but to try to get in four runs. I'll probably hit 17 to 20 again next week. If all goes well, I can ramp things up a bit the week after that.

Slow and steady is my mantra this time around, but patience is definitely not my strong suit.