Day 28

End of week 4 (groan)... This was definitely a tough week and I compounded it by pushing harder than probably I should of on several of my runs.


Distance: 11.0 miles
Duration: 1:42:22
Pace: 9:18
HR Avg/Max: 138/158
notes:


Today is long slow distance day. The punishment of the day... 11 miles. I woke up early and got out of the house and onto the road which felt like somewhat of an achievement itself. The sun was out, but the air was cool and there was a light breeze making the beginning of the run pleasant enough. I kept my hear rate down around 135 for the first 6 miles running at about a 9:20 pace. At the 6 mile point I started having some misfortunes. To begin with, the hard training really began to hit me and my heart rate jumped about 10 beats as my pace stayed even. This coincided with me reaching Bradley Park which has several big hills. The next two miles were rough and I wound up running mile 8 at about a 10:00 min/mile clip. At this point my headphones decided to crap out on me as the left ear piece kept cutting in and out every stride I took. I threw those away in a trash barrel as I exited the park and made my way back to the road to get my final 3 mies in. Getting back on the road helped my psyche and I was able to pick the pace back up.

Mile 9 I had an incident with a homeless guy on a bike. I was running the sidewalk on one side of the road and he was riding his bicycle on the other side of the road going the same direction. He was going pretty slow so we were basically side by side for a while. Then for some reason he decided to cross the road and get onto the sidewalk I was running on. He fell in behind me and biked along on the sidewalk about 6 feet behind me for about a half mile. I was somewhat annoyed, but tried to block it out. Finally he turned off and let me be.

Mile 10 I had an incident with a Rottwieler dog which was off leash in its front yard. Luckily it was friendly but that didn't stop if from coming over and jumping up on me as I ran by. I yelled at the dog and it left me alone. At this point I was pissed off and that got some adrenaline going which actually helped my run.

I got back to my neighborhood and got through mile 11 pushing the pace up to 8:35 min/mile.

Got home and jumped in an ice bath before accompanying my wife and her family for brunch. After brunch I rough housed with the boys for a while. At this point I'm completely exhausted and ready to spend the rest of the day on the couch. The in-laws are finally gone along with their two little boys and two not so little dogs. The chaos is over and hopefully the rest of today and tomorrow will provide the recovery I need to get me into week 5.

But for now. Week 4 is over! 14 weeks to go (groan).