10 Days to the Rock N Roll Half

What a weird week it has been! Thanks for the nice messages regarding my neck and back. All is fine now. :)

Just a quick recap of how things have gone since my last blog entry.
I pool ran for an hour on Monday (oops, did I already say that)? I did my best to not use my arms. It was actually kinda neat to just use my legs.
Tuesday I ran 15 miles and I really don't like running in the heat because it's harder on my body these days. I slowly picked up the pace every 5 miles and finished the run several minutes shy of 2 hours, average overall pace of about 7:50 (I don't have my log book in front of me).
I was so sore the day after, but I think it's because I got up at 0400 to leave for work, 2 hours away, by 4:50 a.m. Long day! At the end of the day I ran 7 miles on the treadmill with a steady uphill climb on the hill setting. It felt challenging, but not hard enough to call it more than an easy run. However it was much faster than my usual recovery run pace.
The inside of my right ankle, just underneath the bony protrusion, was quite swollen and sore afterward. I iced and iced and took ibuprofen and it was better today, but still sore when I ran.

This morning I ran 6.35 miles at a recovery pace (9:00-9:15/mile average). It felt good to run very mellow like that. My ankle did not hurt much, and the swelling is down. Tonight I run another 4 miles, and will not go faster than my body says it wants to go. I like true recovery days because I don't give a crud about how slow I go. :)

Tomorrow I have a GREAT workout... a hard one but I love these challenging runs. It's a progressive tempo run where I start slightly slower than tempo, hold most of the middle miles at tempo and then finish close to all out for the last 2 miles. I can't wait! I'll report back sometime over the weekend.

Run strong, friends!