return of run mojo

I didn't train nearly as much with the children here as I should have, although I didn't have any scheduled races in mind during those three weeks last month in mind, the plan - such as it was - had me running 2.3 miles each morning during the work week. Well, I sort of end up blowing that entirely off after about the first week they were here, and by the third week I didn't run at all.

No longer needing to drive to work so I could take them to summer school and pick them up at the end of the day, the past two weeks I've been on my mountain bike for the 10 mile daily round trip to work. Since I  hadn't been on a regular exercise sched, the last week of July I just rode the bike - no running. This week, I decided that I'd see how I felt after that week of riding to find out just where the old run mojo, which has been missing since Summer '08 with the knee/hip/whateverthehellkindofinjuryitwas had gone to... and I had a good enough run on Tuesday to say to myself "hey, I think I *can* do and finish - no PR, but finish - the Urban Cow Half Marathon on October 3rd." So, I'm registered and committed, and I have a half-assed training plan - which boils down to running 4x a week - Tue/Thur/Sat/Sun - 3.6/3.6/longrun/3.6 between now and October 3rd.

I really have no idea where my physical conditioning is right now. I've always had a lot of stamina but I know from the couple of 5Ks I've done this year that I'm nowhere near the run shape I was in during 2007 when I finished the CIM marathon. The speed isn't there, but the back of pack isn't such a bad place to be, lots of interesting people in the back :)

To test that conditioning, I decided this morning to see starting with a long run of at least 7 miles to see how I felt at the 3.5 mile point, and go further to a turnaround point if I felt OK. The idea was to set my long runs in the next 6 weeks or so to 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 and then taper with no long run on Week 7 with the half marathon on Week 8.

Ran my usual route to the American River Parkway via Sac State, but, surprisingly, the ped bridge over the river is closed between campus and the north side of the river, so I ran down the south side almost to Watt Avenue and back, pulled off a 9 miler. I did not run it fast - the objective was simply to see how I felt after a run of at least 7 miles. Not bad, the plantar fasciitis isn't too bad afterwards either. I'm sure I'll be sore in the morning when I do a 3.6 miler "recovery run" but I feel decent all things considered...