DUMB LUCK

It seems like about once every year or two I have a problem with my car keys during a run. The last one I remember, I took my house key with me, but locked my car key in my car. Believe it or not, there were some cops at the coffee shop when I finished my run. I thought luck was on my side and they’d be able to open the door for me. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get it open and I had to call the locksmith. I believe that was a $60 mistake.

Friday’s mistake was less expensive, but no less embarrassing. Evan, who after 7 weeks is already back from New Zealand for a couple of weeks, joined me at 5:45 AM for a nice 10 mile trail run in Hyland Park. Halfway through the run we stopped for water and I decided to use the facilities (i.e. the woods). When we got back to our cars my key was gone. I had placed it in the little pocket inside my shorts. I assume that when I squatted down, it fell out. Now I do this all the time and haven’t had any problems. It was just dumb luck that Evan was with me. He was kind enough to buy me a cup of coffee and then drive my ass to my house and back. Even without much traffic this took about 45 minutes. So a big thanks to Evan.

Saturday I wanted to get in a longer run with some MP work included. Fortunately, I was able to talk a bunch of others (Ed, Jenna, Kim, Evan, Derek, Eric and Erin from Iowa) into joining me for much of the run. I’ve always been an advocate of training with people that are faster than you. I figure if you’re at all competitive, they’ll help push you to better fitness. If not, you’ll probably just curl up in the fetal position and die. Well, I’m not dead, so hopefully my fitness level is better.

One thing is certain, this group of 2:40 – 2:50 marathoners (not counting Ed’s 2:25 potential) definitely make things look easy. After a two easy miles the pace started to drop as miles 3 and 4 were run in 14-flat. Things gradually got a little quicker after that with a 6:50 and a few miles right around 6:40. Somewhere along the way I remember seeing a 6:27. That’s when I decided to back off and run my own workout. After 10 miles we stopped for water. Then I ran 3 more miles around 6:40 pace before shutting it down and jogging the remaining 4 miles. All told, I ran 17 miles with 9 at 6:40 pace. That run gave me 72 miles for the week on 6 runs. It sounds more impressive than it is because I ran long on Sunday (instead of my usual Saturday), so I had a 20 and a 17 mile run within the same 7 day period. Normally those would be 8 days apart.

I don’t know what it was about this particular MP workout, but my hamstrings were incredibly sore yesterday. I ended up taking the day off, more so because I spent 6 hours staining my mother-in-law’s deck, than because of the hamstrings. I foam rolled my hamstrings last night, but they were still really sore this morning. I somehow slugged my way through 5 miles.

Quote of the day;

“I don’t really like to run. Doing it for five hours and 12 minutes made that much worse. But it’s the challenge and it proved very worthwhile.” – Scott Sherman