I wasn't quite sure how things were going to go for my runs this weekend.  I was schedule to run 22 miles on Saturday and 1 hour 45 minutes on Sunday.  I got up and headed out the door at 6 a.m. at 30 degrees.  I may have been slightly overdressed but I was comfortable and not cold but I was sweating pretty bad which is nothing new.

The goal was to run four 5.5 miles loops in under an hour each and stopping at the house each lap to swap bottles, grab a gel and sandwich if I wanted it.  The first lap went well running right about where I wanted to be walking a portion of 3 hills in miles 4 and 5 and finished in just under 56 minutes.

Lap two I ran a little too fast, I really wasn't paying attention to the pace I was just running how I felt.  I tried to walk the exact spots as I did the first lap on miles 4 and 5 and finished lap to in under 54 minutes.  A little more than 2 minutes faster.  When I got to the house I need to swap out shirts and jacket because sweat was dripping out the bottom of the sleeves.  It turned out to be detrimental.

Lap three, as soon as I started running the legs just didn't want to work.  They were tight and freezing from sweating while I was in the house and now outside at approximately 35 degree now.  I ran and walked trying to get the legs to work again.  I was struggling through mile 12, 13, and 14 but managing.  Mile 15, well that didn't go so well and was actually the slowest mile of the day.  I couldn't run any of the hills so walked a whole lot more on Lap 3.  I stopped a grabbed a gel and a sandwich (peanut butter and honey)

Lap four, I walked the first portion of this while I ate the sandwich before I started running and it still managed to be faster than mile 15.  The final lap I just wanted to survive and strategically picked out little goals.  Run 5 light poles and then walk 1; run to the next intersection and walk the intersection, etc.  Anything to keep me focused and just keep moving.

To the right is the comparison of each lap by mile and average pace.  It was a far cry from how I ran my 18 miler a few weeks ago and there was not consistency in this run.  It turned into a survival run.

Saturday night my back was really bothering me and I had some shooting pain into both knees and my right hip.  I was sore.  Muscles hurt all over and I woke up Sunday with a real tight right calf.

Sunday I waited until 11:00 to go for a run since it was sunny and a little warmer than the 28 for a low.  Off I went with some tight legs and I just wanted to keep it somewhat consistent.  I headed out with the goal of to run a half mile then walk .05 and repeat.  I did pretty well at keeping it going and for whatever reason when I hit mile 7 mentally I just fell apart.  I struggled to keep running and probably walk .4 of a mile.  I took a gel and then got to running again and finished strong.  Overall I felt pretty good to finish the weekend off with 31.5 miles.  Below are a few images.

An hour run today, I kept it much slower and walked the uphills today.  I didn't want to push myself too much after yesterdays run.  My legs are tight and sore and I need to stretch much more than I did last night.  Hopefully they loosened up a bit after this run.  Right at 6 miles in 62 minutes.

​Happy training everyone.

Man time flies and it is so easy to miss posting about a week of training.  In this case I think it was been 2 weeks missed.

Overall I am hanging in there and had a few good weeks and then a few days after I did 18 miles at a great pace I did something to my right calf (non TKR leg).  It was the first time in 20 years of running that I called my wife to come get me.  I wasn't far from the house but I didn't want to make things worse than they were.  The right calf injury was 23 December.  I took 7 days off from doing anything, after all it was Christmas and I was driving out to see the grandkids and it just gave me an excuse not to run while I was there.

7-days later, 30 December, I went for a short run to test the calf out.  No issues, 2.25 miles at a sub-10 minute pace.  So why not pick up where I left off on my training, it has only been 7 days.  So Saturday for my long run I was suppose to run 12 miles, I decided I would do 20 since I missed the 20 miler.  I headed out for my normal 6.5 mile loop and during mile 5 I felt a slight twinge in my right calf.  I pulled up and walked home.  I didn't want to make it any worse or aggravate it any more than I already had.

Sunday I rode my bike on the trainer for 50 miles to include a 6.1 mile Zwift race. Monday I followed up what should have been a swim day and made it another ride day since I just didn't feel like driving to the gym.  I added another hour on the bike.  I wasn't putting in any real hard efforts just keeping it rolling along.

Today, I headed out for another run to see how things felt.  It went well with 7.25 miles in just over 7 minutes averaging 9:45 pace.  I am happy with that.  Hopefully everything continues to go well and I am able to hit my 20 miler this weekend.

I am 2-weeks from having hernia surgery which will take me out of running for 2-weeks so hopefully that doesn't set me back to much.

​Happy training all.