12 Miles to upper park, beautiful views at sunset of Bidwell Park ridge. Workin it slow in the Pegasus, knee wasn't having any problems at an 8:30 pace. I did speed up to a marathon pace of about 7:10/mile pace for 2 miles and it started complaining a little. There is no way I could have ran the whole thing at that pace like I did in Bologna. I'm going to do my next run in the cheap Nikes, see if there is a difference. Was feelin pretty spent by the end of the run, definitely should have fueled up a little more and taken some ginseng. But not a bad run.
I am so freaking stoked after this run! I was wearing the $30 Nikes, and had no problems with my knees. This means, While I still have some concerns about over training, I am 100% positive that the shoes are what's causing most most or all of my knee pain. On Sunday, I ran 12 miles with only 2 of them being at BQ pace. At the end of those two miles I was getting the knee pain when lifting my knees. Tonight, I ran 14 miles, and 10 of them were at a BQ pace. And no problems, at all. I was even running up hill and downhill. Temp was about 74 degrees, and I was flying. Had about 1 and a half miles of solid uphill running and I rocked it. Overall pace was 7:23/mile And that's including starting off at 8:00/mile.
I basically had intended on running this at an 8:00/mile pace and then running a couple miles at BQ pace, then I just decided to keep going to see when the knee pain would come like it did with the pegasus, and it didn't. So I decided to see when my energy would give out... and it didn't. Coming off a 12 mile run on Sunday, I'm pretty happy with that level of endurance.
Ate a banana, apple, and took 2 ginseng capsules before the run. Had been drinking water all day. Had a LOT of energy, and was maintaining a solid pace the whole way, even sprinted the last quarter mile. Felt absolutely fantastic.... still feeling fantastic as I write this!
8 fast miles around the track. 7:21 average pace. After 2 and a half hours at the gym doing a great workout. increased my number of reps on all weights and exercises. Definitely happy that I ran almost a BQ pace for 8 miles after that with no refueling. Could have pushed it to a BQ pace, also could have gone longer, but saving the tank for tomorrow's 20 miler.
Knees, joints, feet, legs, muscles, everything else is fantastic.
I was not correctly prepared for this run. After last night's intense workout at the gym and then the intense 8 mile run. I think a combination of 3 things contributed to making this run horrible. 1 -The gym workout. My muscles were healing from the workout, where I increased my max amount of reps all my biceps and triceps exercises. 2. I didn't drink enough water after the workout and run from last night, and I didn't drink enough water during the day before the run. 3. Not enough food during the day and not enough fuel.
The whole run was difficult, I was fighting to keep an 8:30/mile pace, after only 10 miles I hit a wall and had to stop and walk for a few minutes. I was thirsty and feeling dehydrated. I somehow managed to get 2 more miles at a slow pace. Luckily some people on the trail were just finishing a hike and had a lot of water left, they let me drink it, I drank almost all of their full canteen, which they were happy to give. My pace picked back up to 8:30/mile after that but I could feel my muscles shutting down, I needed fuel, bad. I had to walk again when I reached mile 14. Walked for .5 miles till I found a blackberry bush on the side of the trail. Most of them were shriveled up but there were some still ripe and juicy ones. I ate those, and a bunch of the shriveled up ones as well, they weren't bad actually. This gave me a much needed boost and between that and resting for about 8 minutes as I looked for juicy black berries. Ran the last 2 miles at marathon pace and caught up to a few people who had passed me up while I was picking black berries. I have never been closer to collapsing. I got home and immediately devoured half my kitchen.
I hope I am fully recovered from this by next sunday, where I'm running a full marathon. I was originally planning on going 18 or 20 miles but the trail ended at about 8.3 miles where I turned around and ran back. So it was about 16.6 miles or so.I'm glad I did not go any further. I know something was up. I just didn't have anything in the tank for this run. I think the biggest factor was not enough water or food during the day. If I had taken a cliff bar and drank a lot more water during the day before running, I think I would have maintained the 8:30 pace the whole way without a problem. So, total time was over 3 hours for only 16 miles. In comparison, on Tuesday, I ran 14 miles on the same trail in 1:40 minutes. And that was with 1 day of rest after running 12 miles.
Oh well, got it in the bank. pretty sure as long as I'm properly hydrated and fueled up, I will be fine for the marathon. I was glad to see that after only a small hadful of blackberries, I got a boost for a marathon pace for 2 miles at the end of the run after running horrible the previous 6 or so. Not too concerned about this, unless it's a slow recovery, but already I'm feeling a lot better after a large dinner.
Oh, and knees were fine.
*edit* Forgot to mention that I was cold most of this run. I always go without a shirt and thought that there was enough warmth today, but Fall has definitely set in and the winds were a blowin. For most of the run I was feeling pretty cold, I'm guessing this was a factor as well. No more shirtless runs.
