Thursday, December 9, 2010

Picking It Up or Slow Up?


It's been pretty cold the last few days. And since I have a cold, I've been bundling up for these morning runs. The first mile or so has me hacking like a nicotine addict and, at times, I need to actually stop and bend over red-faced to clear out all the slime. I've just got to get it out. On Wednesday I ran with Karl down to Tilden (8) and on Thursday I ran the TV Repair Loop with Luff and Hanson (9). We searched the rail road tracks for bodies...but found none.

Despite my cold, I seem much more fit than I was two weeks ago (obviously) but I have noticed a slight relapse with my injury. I'm now hovering around 60 miles a week (or at least over the course of the past 7 days) and these back to back hour-a-day runs seem to be taking a toll. Again, this "pain" is not really pain and this is nothing like it was pre-MRI/time off. It comes and goes and Sarah has given me a couple of new stretches to do...easily. Either I need to get use to it and push through, or scale back some. I feel as if 60 mpw is a good launching pad, so I think I'll pull back and try to get use to running this much, but not really running much more. I have not taken a day off now in 3 weeks, which in retrospect might be dumb. I am not being stubborn, or forcing it, but running easy everyday (6:40-7:00/mile) had been helping and not hurting. On-off-on days at the time were more painful, but I think I'll take Friday off or simply run an easy 30 minutes. I will say that running "easy" when it's cold is difficult. You're body wants to naturally get moving to get, and then stay, warm so taking it easy, well - it ain't easy.

Tomorrow I am heading to Charlotte to watch the USATF XC Champs. Naturally, I'd rather be racing, but there is no need for that. I need to be careful and NOT run around the course stupidly as all that up and down and back and forth could send me back a few days. Our team is as solid as it has ever been - a former D2 All American, two 30:35 10k guys, a OT 'thon qualifier, a 2:21 marathoner and a 14:40 guy...and, the list goes on. Because I am a stat geek, I went through last year's results and predict a team score of 350-400 points (I actually came up with 375). This places us just out of the top 10 based on results from last year and this assumes our top 5 runs between 31:30 and 32:00 over the 10k course. Lots of assumptions here and cross country is very unpredictable, but why not make a prediction.

Here are results from LAST YEAR.

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