8 Mile Wednesday

After my day off from running to let my legs heal after the massage therapist, I was hoping that my run today would be good. I woke up a little after 7 and hustled out the door. The weather was cold again, and I was really hoping that my days of cold weather gear might be over for awhile. But it was not to be....

The sun was already up and blasting, I have to say that I have slowly been changing how I feel about the sun. There is something nice about how it feels on your skin, especially when it is chilly. That worked out well considering the temps were around freezing and a bit colder with the wind-chill.

I did some stretching and slowly started up my hill. The first steps I was really anxious about how I would feel. The left ITB was sore immediately, but that was something that usually happens, so I wasn't all that concerned about it. The right ITB on the other hand was completely painless, and that excited me. The lack of pain lasted until around mile 1.5. It did come back...and was pretty sore by the end, but it really did feel like progress.

I focused not so much on pace, as just trying to work on keeping my upper body arm swing a little more consistent. I sometimes wonder if part of my issues have to do with poor form and while reading the new RunnersWorld I noticed that healthy arm swinging is not nearly as much across the body as I tend to make it. This might be something minor, but it is one of those easy things that I can fix, so I thought I would work on that as the goal of my run.

I was pretty tired by mile 5, but I was enjoying the run. I was edgy yesterday, and I think a lot of it was just not getting out when I really wanted to do so. I was trying to make up for it today.

The last two miles, I did push my effort a bit. When I got to 8.01 miles I walked the last couple of blocks home and stretched. My time was 1 hour 17 minutes and 15 seconds, or a 9 minute and 38 second pace. The legs were pretty sore, and I have stretched a few times today. I really want to get out for some miles tomorrow, but won't push it if they are really sore.

I have recently been able to get the Garmin software to work with my computer, and have started downloading my runs. I will go into greater detail about all the cool things it does after the half-marathon this weekend.  Thanks for reading!