Two a Days

On my recovery run this morning along the River, I saw a dog completely stop, and sprawl out it's legs on the ground and refuse to go another inch. I had to fight the urge to follow suit. After two days of runs where I rolled along effortlessly in the 6:15-6:45 range for 8 miles on Tuesday and then 13 miles yesterday, my body didn't want to run under 8 min. pace this morning. I guess my marathon training is in full effect.

I am going to have to start getting used to having mid-week medium long runs that are anywhere from 13-16 miles. For several years at least now those have been long runs for me. On Tuesday I got to do 10x100 meters after my run. After the first couple in which I felt like I was competing in the 90 and over division at the Penn Relays 100 meter dash, the legs opened up a bit. It's important to turn the legs over occasionally when you are building the mileage up, if anything to prevent you from acquiring a marathon shuffle.

My heart got the equivalent of two workouts today. I had an afternoon dental appt., and in the middle of my cleaning I felt a sudden rush of air and heard a pop. Not quite the visceral experience you want at the dentists office. I looked up and the hygienist was silent. Apparently, the top of the polisher had blown off when she had turned the air pressure on, and the tool had flown at a hundred miles an hour into the wall next to me. I overheard her talking to someone in the hallway, and she didn't reassure me when I heard "anytime those people touch the tools they break them." When she came back in the room and asked me if I was ready to get back into the cleaning I asked her if this happens a lot. She said it's happened a couple times...not reassuring. Her next sentence was the best though: "Just think, if it happens again you will own Penn." The cleaning went off without a hitch, but I definitely am going to log the session in as a cross training workout because my heart rate was well over 200 for the rest of the cleaning.

The next hard workout is Saturday's 5 mile race, Run for the Hill of It. It looks like some of the Penn guys are going to run, so it should be fun to see if I can hang on to them for awhile.

All the best, Eric