60, 59, and Counting

February 15, 2013: 59 and Counting..... 13 miles (78:03) - ran home from work.  I have 3 things to say: Thank you Jesus!  Thank you Jesus!  Thank you Jesus!   I was truly shocked by today's run.  I expected to feel residual fatigue from the last 5 days of training, but I felt amazing!  This is the fastest I have ever run home from work on the 13-mile route.  The last 10 miles were run in 59:00 with the last two miles dropping to marathon goal pace (5:38 and 5:34).  I felt smooth and strong on this run.  The only time I felt my heart rate really spike was after reaching the top of one of the hills.  I tried to work the hills pretty hard by shortening my stride, increasing leg turnover, and concentrating on pumping my arms.  Many of the hills I run around here are steeper than the hills in Boston, so I am hoping these runs will help take out or reduce the 'heartbreak' of Boston's 'heartbreak hill.'  After the run, I put on a dry compression shirt, hat, gloves, swimming trunks, and water shoes.  I then got into the lake a little over waist deep for a 12-minute ice bath.  This was a battle in and of itself as it was about 35 degrees outside.  My legs adjusted to the water temperature after about 4 or 5 minutes, but the part of my body out of the water was shivering pretty much the whole time.  Sometimes I have to mentally approach these dips into the lake as hard, 12-minute races.  I tell myself to 'man up', climb down the ladder as quickly as possibly, then endure to that 12-minute finish line.  God is good! :-)

The song for this post is "On My Own" by Ashes Remain.  It's a rockish song about how we are not meant to fight alone in this life....we are created to be connected to the one and only God.

P.S.  I hope this isn't the 2nd time I've posted this song....:-P....if it is, just be encouraged by it
again! :-)  This time, I'm going to try to post the song as an individual post.

February 14, 2013: 60 and Counting..... 8-mile recovery run on the treadmill (68:30). I got up at 4:30 am for this one. I had a chiropractic appointment after work, so I wanted to make sure I got this one in before work. I watched Sportscenter (silently b/c everyone else in the house was obviously still in bed). The highlights sufficed though. In fact, a West Virginia highlight made #4 on the Top 10 plays when Jabarie Hinds inbounded the ball off the back of a Baylor player, caught the ball, and slammed it home....pretty cool! :-)
As I was watching Sportscenter, I worked the treadmill up to 7.5 mph (8:00 per mile pace). However, after spending about a 1/2 mile at that pace, I dropped it down to 7.2 mph. On recovery runs, I want to keep my heart rate pretty relaxed. For whatever reason 7.5 mph felt a little labored.....7.2 mph did not. Usually on recovery runs I work the treadmill up to 8.0 or 8.2 mph(around 7:30 per mile) .....it just wasn't happening this morning though. I was just glad when the display screen hit 8.00 miles. :-P