baby steps (weeks 18 and 19)

May is here, people.

Yes, there's been plenty of rain here in Pennsylvania, but there's also been a wealth of sunshine and warm (not hot, not yet) temperatures.

I should be cranking out the miles but I'm doing my best to pull on the reigns and give my Achilles time to heal.  Or, more importantly, I'm trying to improve flexibility and leg strength to help alleviate the undue stress I'm putting on my Achilles by being weak in other places.

Thankfully, I am also managing to log miles, if not nearly as many as I'd like.  I laid low for the first week of May but have again gotten back to lifting my feet, moving my legs and loving every minute of it.

Because I'm not ready to write off summer entirely, I've been using these relatively slow miles to get used to running with water.  That might not immediately make sense and, admittedly, I don't need to be carrying water for the current efforts of 3-5 miles at a time at 7:30-10 minute mile pace.  But one of these days I'm going to feel all the way better and be ready to get back to 25K, 50K and beyond distances.  With any luck, that'll be sooner than later and is likely to coincide with the wicked humidity that visits the Mid-Atlantic each and every summer.  When that day arrives, I'd like to be tackling runs without having to condition myself to carrying the extra weight of a couple of bottles.

How's that for spotting the last drop of water in a formerly half full glass?

For now, it'll have to do.  Here's a look at May thus far:

Sunday, May 8 - So happy to be back on the Horseshoe Trail that I forgot to restart the GPS after we stopped and chatted at Eagle Rock - probably went 1.5 miles further than the photo suggests.

Tuesday, May 10 - Short loop on Penryn and White Oak roads - tentative to push in the Minimus. 

Thursday, May 12 - Out and back on the Lancaster Junction R2T - feeling the effects of the ab work from the prior day's therapy session.

Friday, May 13 - Ran the Penryn/White Oak loop in reverse on my lunch break - stronger effort.

Sunday, May 15 - Horseshoe Trail and Explorer Lodge Road (?) - Struggled a bit early with the humidity/climbing but finished feeling strong and pleased to feel the legs rebound late in the run.

week nine.

March arrived on Monday prematurely lamb-ish but, by the weekend, was roaring appropriately like a lion.  I loved the warm, sunshine-y days and I really loved Sunday on which the floodgates apparently decided to break open and dump inch after inch of rain on the Horseshoe Trail.

I didn't get back to the frequency of runs that I was managing ahead of Piper's bout with the flu (she's all better!), but I'm super stoked on logging 3 separate hour+ runs.  The first of those, a road run, at 10.5 miles in brand new shoes at 7:30 pace was a pleasant and unexpected surprise on the heels of the Ugly Mudder two days before.  Saturday and Sunday were much slower affairs, but, with a focus on climbing and remaining locked in at a manageable pace (not too fast, not too slow) throughout, they were much closer to being my ideal training efforts than many recent runs.

I had hoped to run the Buzzards Marathon on the Appalachian Trail/Horseshoe Trail in Dauphin County on Sunday, but Lindsay ended up scheduled to work second shift and an 8:00 start time was going to have me pushing my luck, especially once the weather report turned out to be on the money with its call for monsoon-like conditions.  The trade off is that my first "goal race" of the year went off (I think) without me. 

Still, all in all, it was a week of good stuff.  Good stuff that looked like this:

Wednesday, March 2 - First time out in the New Balance Road Minimus - I was prepared to do 4 or fewer miles if they didn't play nice, but ended up having one of the best 10+ mile runs of my life.

Friday, March 4 - Morning run to work.  Legs still feeling pretty fresh.

Friday, March 4 - Run home from work at nearly identical pace to that morning's run.

Saturday, March 6 - Tentative first run in the NB Trail Minimus up over Eagle Rock to Camp Mack and back on the Horseshoe Trail.  The shoes felt great underfoot, but I did manage a minor heel blister.  Need to adjust to the streamlined fit and should be good.  Stay tuned.

Sunday, March 6 - Long, methodical run on the Horseshoe Trail, the first half with Jefferson and the second half solo.  Pounded by the arrival of a rainstorm that would end up dumping an inch-and-half of rain over the course of the day.

what gluttony looks like.

 

New Balance Trail Minimus (foreground) and Road Minimus.