Back on Track

After a rough past several days, I'm very much looking forward to getting back on track. Yesterday morning I put in my first run since my argument with the manhole cover and it went pretty well. I did, however, find it a little ironic that my first run after falling on ice was done in a snowstorm. It was snowing like mad in Fayetteville and the roads were completely covered. To make things more "interesting," the roads had gotten a little wet the day before, and where they had there was ice frozen underneath the snow. Needless to say, it was a tad slippery. I managed to stay upright though, and even did the one-mile trail loop there in town which was a nice change of pace and scenery. In terms of how I felt, not so good. My quads were sore and I felt pretty beat-up in general, especially for having had two days off. Not sure why that was. I think I'm just worn down right now from a combination of things.

Today I did my standard day-before-a-long-run recovery run and felt pretty good. The first part was a little rough but I started feeling better about halfway through and really felt good towards the end. I'm still pretty tired, but hopefully I'm starting to work through it. I'm going to make a big effort to get some extra rest over the next few days. My knees seem ok when I'm running, but they're still a little bruised and scraped up, so I'll keep an eye on them as well as I jump back into my regular schedule.

It's hard to believe, but the month of January is now in the books. Looking back, it went very well, a complete contrast to January of 2008 when I got off to an ugly start with my lowest mileage month of the year. I think I'm well on my way to building a base and putting together a very solid block of training. I do think I've learned one thing however. I believe I was slightly over-doing the pace for much of the month. It started out when I was having to struggle to run 7:15-7:20 pace, and instead of relaxing and letting myself run the 7:30's that my body wanted to, I just couldn't bear seeing such slow numbers and put out more effort than I should have. As I got fitter, I continued with that effort and 7:15's became 6:40's, all the while with my heart rate in the upper 150's or low-160's. I guess this is where the Garmin is good and bad. The feedback is nice, but you have to take it as just that, feedback, not a reason to run faster than you should. I plan on easing off the pace on my recovery runs this coming month regardless of what pace that might translate out to. I'm gonna try to keep my HR in the upper-140's or low-150's, which is what I did in today's easy run. That should allow me to recover as needed so that I'm ready to hammer come workout time.

Anyway, that's it for me. Here's looking forward to getting back on track and kicking off a good February with a nice, solid long run in the morning! I'm starting to smell some races now and getting more excited every day. Almost time to get out and roll!