Every Race is an Adventure!

Ran the normal Monday mornnig run with Larry at an easy pace, about 9:00/mi. A little to my surprise, I was feeling no pain from having run in the WBR on Friday and Saturday, but my legs were pretty tired.

Ran the normal Tuesday morning run with Kevin and Larry. My legs still felt a little tired so I didn't push too hard. We ran about 8:30/mi for most of the run; the uphill was about 10:30/mi.

Ran the normal Wednesday hill run with Kevin and Larry. My legs were still a little tired. I ran pretty strong but didn't push it. The first long uphill brought back some not too fond memories of the YGTBKM leg of the WBR last Saturday.

Later in the morning I cleaned out the cat's litter box upstairs. I was carrying the bag of old litter in one hand and a small vacuum in the other as I went downstairs. I avoided the bags from my daughter's recent trip that were at the bottom of the stairs, but didn't see her pair of shoes that were on the floor right in from of the bottom step. I stepped on one of them and rolled my right ankle. Fortunately, I managed to not spill any of the dirty litter as I fell to the floor. I would rate the sprain as mild (3 on a scale of 1 to 10). I can walk on it pretty well; I only feel minor pain if I step on it wrong. I still plan to run tomorrow, but will take it easy.

I mildly twisted my ankle Wednesday when I stepped on a shoe my daughter left at the bottom of the stairs. I was carrying a bag of dirty cat litter and a vacuum cleaner and didn't see the shoe. Luckily, I managed to not spill the cat litter and still not get injured too badly. Still, I took Thursday off to let the ankle heal a bit. Friday I put on my ankle support and played basketball with my two sons, Andrew and Adam, and my old buddies in PG I hadn't seen for a while. It was great, but it left some unused muscles a little sore.

This morning Kevin, Kent, Larry, Wayne, and I ran from our neighborhood up past Bridal Veil Falls and back, about 14.4 miles.

I ran a moderate pace and averaged about 8:57/mi on the way up.

On the way back, Kevin and Wayne pushed the pace and dragged me along. I averaged about 7:19/mi back to the mouth of the canyon. I hung with Kevin and Wayne for 3 of the 4 miles, but they surged ahead the last mile.

We waited for the rest of the group at the mouth then started to run the last 3 miles home. My legs were very tired and sore and were slow to respond. I struggled to average a 9:04/mi pace on the way home. Kevin and Wayne continued their fast pace and quickly left Kent, Larry, and me behind. Larry stayed with Kent and me. We were both struggling but he was running strong and dragging us along. With about a mile to go Larry left us behind and finished very strong.

Kent and I, having been the only two to run in the WBR the previous weekend, and not accustomed to working so hard to run a 9:00/mi pace, were left to deduce that the WBR had taken a harder toll on us than we thought. I hope next week feels better.