Lake Michigan at Sunrise

Lake Michigan at Sunrise

Monday, July 8, 2013

Gotta get that run off your shoulders

Two run recap post!
Yesterday was my last day in Michigan for our little trip and my last run there. Overall, the scenery was pretty, I felt safe running on the side of the road, and I would run there again (and will as we visit pretty often).

I had an easy paced long run scheduled for yesterday, figuring that I'll do an easy paced 13 every other week for my plan, and then do a bit stronger run on the other Sundays. Good thing I was already mental prepared for a slower run.

The first few runs I did on vacation, I recognized the hills in the roads, but I didn't respect them enough. My legs secretly did though. After the first few miles, I instantly felt the fatigue in my legs. The hills in the road quietly had been sapping the energy from my legs the last couple days. I instantly thought -if you are going to do me like that, at least take me out for a drink or dinner too, jeez.

Now, I can't go comparing it to a cool mountain run or anything legit like that, but it certainly made every run a hill workout setting you'd see on a treadmill. Hills from 50-150 feet, total elevation 2x that done on Lake Shore Path for the same distance (although that isn't saying too much 478 v 976 feet). Doing 13 miles on that at an 8 minute mile pace was as hard if not harder than doing it on the lake front under 90 minutes. Hopefully I see some gains from this!

In the 4+ hours I spent out there the last few days, I had a 100% success rate with waves ( 1 for 1). There were three different gangs of those black birds with the red patches on their wings that took turns circling over my head until I left their area. I eventually talked to them in my head as it got a bit lonely out there.

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Fast forward to this morning. Recovery run, 6 miles. Was hoping to catch a nice sunrise, but was pretty overcast. That was a good thing as it was already warm and humid, but there were no gnats which was a nice change. I had to limber up my running wave hand as I felt a little rusty to start, but I got on a good groove. Multiple thumbs ups, waves, nods, even double dipped on waves seeing people a second time on my return trip. Feels nice to run on my home turf again.

Tomorrow: 5x1k intervals with 400m jogs in between. I'll be doing what I did last week and run it a little slower than I should ideally hit to make sure I don't restrain my right calf.
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Now for some non running things:
Yesterday while I was out running, my daughter said something like - I'm jogging! and started running around  the house, sad I missed that!

You ever have an inappropriate tv show joke that is stuck in your head for too long and not enough people pick up on it so that it can move out of your head? Here is mine,  from FX's Archer:



Please tell me you watch this show so we can trade wildly bad jokes.

I mentioned the other day that my wife got me +The Settlers of Catan . I always love going into game stores like Dice Dojo, but rarely get a game. We tried it out with a cousin and her cousin's boyfriend and we all liked it! Now we have to figure out how to play a 3-4 player game, guess we need to invite people over?

Sad vacation is over, I enjoyed being with my ladies every day.

Have a good one!

6 comments:

  1. I'm so sad vacation is over... why????

    Nice job on your runs, I'm sure the hill workouts will help in the long run!

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  2. Seriously! Can we do some half days to ease back into work and build up our base?

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  3. Hopefully those hills will translate into some fitness gains in a week or two. It's nice that the runners in MI are so friendly! Good luck with that interval workout! Hope you can finish without making your calf angry.

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  4. Those Black birds with red patches are "Red Winged Blackbirds", and they should really only be happy in marshes. I think the human displacement factor here has them hanging out in the city trying to eke out a living where they can.


    Catan sounds awesome. I always hear people online talking about it, but have never actually seen it.

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  5. I've been told by a million people that I'd love Archer, but the animation annoys me too much! It's not that it's a cartoon, it's that it's an UGLY cartoon. Maybe someday I'll give it a chance.


    Good job getting some hills in! I used to be intimidated by them but I started forcing myself to run them more and now I love them. Can't say I'll ever be able to hold an 8:00 pace on them, though (or on flat ground, for that matter).

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  6. We have regular Settlers and the Star Trek version... and have never played it. Sigh. Strategy games stress me out!


    I bet you will gain something from those hills! Not a dinner, but something else ;)

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