saturday in the rain and a movie

today's run was just really bad, the worst in a long time and maybe the worst since i have been here and why? wish i knew that one- heart rate was 46 this morning. with less running and a day off it came down a little and needs more rest i am sure to come down more. was raining pretty good when i went out and unfortunately it stopped about 3 miles into the run and turned warm and left me a tad overdressed.

but the story is in the legs. i can run in the rain or the heat and can live with it going back and forth. i should have been hydrated enough and while i only had 6 hours of sleep last night it is rare that i get much more than that no matter how i try so that shouldn't have been the problem. and i even felt somewhat ok for the first half mile, but then it turned ugly fast. the right leg was sore in several places and the broken toe on my left foot was just painful with each step. i knew the toe would mello out and most of the time the right leg would at least calm down and let me go on, but this was new tightness and some pain in the upper outside part of the right quad. surprisingly the pf problem was not that bad today.

had to make a decision about what to do and i decided i would run and stop and stretch every mile for the rest of the run and see if i could tough it out until 7 miles. the stretching helped of course, but the legs were just dead tired and sore. but once you are 3-4 miles away you have to move somehow just to get back home. i have my favorite stretching places and used them- went up and down the river and over to the canal and around snake island and then back to the river. was moving slowly, but did manage to keep more than half of the run in my 65-75% zone. tried some striders on the river trail to see if i had any life and i could stride out, but not recover and i gave that up quickly.

the best bet at this point was to just tough it out and get home. the freshman crew teams were out on the river and the swans were out and so were the cows and horses and it was a pretty enough day as the sun went in behind the clouds and came back out occasionally. at 5+ miles i stopped at the hotel store and bought a water and that helped. more likely the stop helped more than the water, but at that point i was just moving on so to speak. for anyone reading this who has run a marathon that didn't go really well, this entire run was like the last three miles of a marathon.
but like that race eventually the finish line comes and so does binsey lane, yea!

stretched some more at home and had some breakfast and did laundry. the legs stopped hurting quickly enough and that was a good sign. gail had a little work to do and i skipped up to the driving range and hit a bucket and chipped a little. could feel the right leg as i hit balls, but it wasn't too bad and when i chipped it didn't bother me at all. even the walk home went ok.

a quick shower and we walked the two miles hoping to and just beating the rain, to jericho to see a movie, Female Agents, which i enjoyed. a tense french war underground spy sort of movie about the role woman played in resistance fighting and counter intelligence, it was pretty violent, but the story was interesting and the acting was top notch across the board. had a "Magnificent Seven" start and end to the movie also. anyway, we had the same two mile walk back and barely beat the rain home. the four extra miles didn't hurt the legs at all and seemed to help a little. still not sure what i will do tomorrow though my brain knows my legs need rest. will see.

am always tempted to see how they feel, but i need some m ore speedwork and a four hour run before we leave here. my goal of taking the break in ireland might just be too far away time wise to wait that long. i know time off won't kill my endurance but it is always one of the highlights to the day. will try and be smarter than usual.

home to find out that venus came back to beat her sister and that valverde won the first stage of the tour. now to fold laundry and do paper work and make some calls and finish my book and get ready for tomorrow. another day done. more rain tomorrow, more tour also. it is time to speed up the get ready to go home stuff.

overall a decent day. will see how the legs feels in the morning and go from there.