12.7.08

Long run. Did an hour at the park on mostly grass, got a sip of gatorade and headed off into the wilds. Did my normal route out middlebrook, down cedar bluff, through the major hills subdivision, then out to pilot and walmart, through the greenway and then ran it back to the park where I did a modified shorter loop. Legs were pretty trashed and hurting after this run. I knew it was going to be tough when I made it to the subdivision and hit that first hill. I was kind of like "uh oh, that one took me down a notch". But I just kept going and going. By two and half hours my legs were starting to feel some major effects from the hills. An achiness that just seems to hurt down to the bone. I stayed as relaxed as possible, but my lower back was pretty bad too. I think I was looking down too much, mostly to avoid looking at the lights on passing cars. I had to stop a few times for traffic, but not more than a minute or wherabouts so it wasn't too bad. Last 50 minutes of this run as I said was very tough. I was breathing really good, but the legs were pretty shot. It is NOT flat and I think there are just too many hills to really not have dead legs. All the same it's good training.

I had a small bite of laraba bar sometime around 2.5 hours, but I did notice that around 3 hours the stomach was growling, so I may need to eat a little more and probably a little earlier as well. I also only had that one drink at one hour. I wish I could have some sort of water pack I could carry along. I don't like bottles. They slosh and I think it would either throw my balance off or cause me to run a little different. My hip still hurts from time to time. Not in a big way, but I don't want anything to worsen it. I think it is a nerve damage or something because it really hasn't gone away after like 9 months or something crazy like that. The good part is it only "hurts" sometimes. If I press on it there is pain, but running walking are virtually free of pain so I just ignore it. So a good start to the week. Should be having some great numbers for December, hopefully up around 400 miles this month if I get in all my other long runs.

Just want to repeat that the legs were totally shot after this run, mostly the calves and hams. I could barely walk and it hurt to just stand there. I opted out of the ice bath and am going to try some stretching tonight and see if there is any difference. Normally with the ice I can run the next day so we'll see what happens.

2:50 pm. ball camp/middlebrook. 34 sunny to 31 at sunset.
3:21:30, gm 687