Well, I was wrong about having a shot at my 5k PR the weekend before last at Music In Motion. I realized at the one mile marker that it was NOT gonna happen! Ended up with a 21:20, which I am okay with. The great news is Coop ran an 18:41 and finished third overall, losing only to a fellow XC runner from Dixon and a 12-year-old from Sterling. Yes, you read that right, a 12-YEAR-OLD that ran an 18:40 5k! I think it's safe to say that kid will be making his mark in XC and track the next few years. Ridiculously fast for a kid that age. The next day me and trail running convert Kerry had a good run at the Pines to break in my Mt110's and his new pair of Salomon's.
This past weekend found the family in Galena for the weekend again, which means a weekend of hills, hills, hills! Gina had a fifteen-miler scheduled for Saturday, so I tried for the HOTY (Husband-Of-The-Year) award and decide to tag along for 5 or 10 miles of it. As we ran my decision making abilities began to abandon me and I decide to do the whole fifteen. Gina claimed I was, quote "trying to kill her", on a recent eight-mile trail run. Now that she was in her element on the roads I am pretty sure she decided it was payback time. Despite being five-foot-nothing and having a stride length of around 8 inches, that woman just about broke and dropped me at around mile thirteen. Honestly, what kind of person actually speeds up at the bottom of a hill at that point in a run? Somebody who is trying to punish their running partner, that's who! I think the high point (for her that is) was when she looked over her shoulder as she was running away and asked me if I was "all right". I really wanted to respond as casually as possible, but I only managed a sort of strangled croak in reply. It was a sad display.
I did manage to hang on to finish the entire run and rallied myself enough to hit the trails on Sunday for a 5.5 mile run and actually felt pretty good, with a minimum of power-hiking up the hills. I made a concerted effort to pay more attention to my diet a while back. Not in a counting calories kind of way, just trying to eat a lot more veggies and less meat and staying away from the crap food like convenience store breakfast sandwiches, chips, stuff like that. Basically getting away from a "trash can" diet and making fast friends with lettuce and spinach. I think it has really paid off big time with my recovery time. Last year I don't think I ever would have been able to tie my shoes after a long, hilly run like Saturday's, let alone hit the trails and feel decent the next day.
I have also made a concerted effort to get my recovery started as soon as possible when I finish a run. If my feet or ankles are a bit beat up I soak them in some cold-ish water for a while if I can. Then I usually try to get some protein and carbs back in with some chocolate milk, fish, or peanuts. If it was a pretty long or tough run I will usually put on my recovery socks for a while afterwards. They are basically compression socks that are designed not to be run in, only to be worn afterwards. As an added bonus, the socks totally embarrass my wife if I wear them outside in public. And of course I make sure to drink plenty of water. This sounds like a lot to go through after a run but it really isn't that time consuming, and in my opinion if you are going to do something semi-seriously you might as well make it as painless as possible and give your body what it needs to get cranked up to do it again the next time. Like Scott Jurek says, "train smarter, not harder." Or something like that.
Might have a review of Mississippi Palisades State Park coming soon. Until next time...
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