10K anyone?

This past Saturday I broke out my 6 mile neighborhood run. The last time I tried to run it in June I had to walk the last mile because of soreness. This time I ran the whole thing fast and finished strong. There was one hill toward the end where I felt like throwing my fists in the air and yelling--- it suddenly hit me that I was doing it-- running--- really running--- something I've been wanting to do for a long long time. It felt great. I was on a busy street, too self conscious to actually do it.... but I should have...

Yesterday I ran 7 miles on the trail with friends. This too, was a special route for me, something I used to run all the time. It's been about 2.5 years since I've been healthy enough to tackle it. We kept an honest pace, finished fast-- 53 minutes of running-- again, it's been years....

I woke up this morning a little sore--- shins, quads, a blister or 2 on the feet--- hip soreness may be there a little, but it's light.

There's a 10K in April, the "Cap10K". I ran it in '07-- in fact, it was the last time I wore a chip, officially raced. That's me racing it in picture to the left. I'd love to race it again. OK, I'm officially putting it out there-- I intend to run the Cap10K in April. I may be jinxing it, but here it is--- blogged.

Postscript: I canceled my appointment with the hip resurfacing doc because I think my hip is trying to tell me that it doesn't want to be replaced...

Treadmill implosion workout

Lotsa posts lately.... hope nothing bad is gonna happen.... happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.....

Anyway, just wanted to share a good treadmill workout that I've concocted. I start out at an easy pace (say 6.6 mph, 9 minute pace) and after each quarter mile, I bump up the speed by 0.2 mph. I like this workout because I don't know how it's going to end. Will I make it to X speed today? Today I imploded at 9.6. Toward the end I made faces, wimpered, etc. The total distance covered was 4 miles. I left the gym completely spent. Good stuff.

F-ing satisfying

It's been a month now since my, uh, I'm calling it my "breakthrough" run. A couple weeks ago I ran 16 miles over 3 runs. Last week we were vacationing in Mexico and I scaled back to 12 miles. I'm slowly bumping up the volume each week because I'm curious where it's going. I'm not being cautious though--- I'm being pretty "stupid" actually--- I'm pushing hard--- going all out, finishing as hard as I can, which is surprisingly fast, faster than I've run in years, and significantly faster than I've ever run since my first hip scope 2 years ago. Why am I pushing so hard? Good question--- I guess because I'm sick of being slow, and I'm sick of negotiating--- if I'm going to run, I want to really run. So what gives? I'm trying not to think about it too much. I could wake up tomorrow and not be able to run because I'm being careless, but right now, I'm able to crank out some really fucking satisfying miles with little or no pain. Fuck yeah.