Sunday, January 11, 2009

12 Miler - Yes!

Yes, finally a good run in 2009. 12 Miles in 1:42:59. 8:34 Pace.

Jill and I did 12 miles on the Highline Canal Trail going south from Orchard. We ran her pace which was good for me, because of the injuries. My goal/hope was to do the 12 without a lot of pain or tightness. I took 2 advil about an hour before the run and wore my calf wrap on my right calf to keep it warm and snug. Not sure if either of those impacted the run. I also got a good nights sleep, massaged my calf and iced my knees the night before.

The weather was great, cloudy but in the upper 30's will light wind. On the way back the temperature dropped the last couple of miles and there was even a few snow flakes, but not much.

We started off slow and easy. It is a cinder/dirt path most of the way, that is mainly flat. It is a beutifully maintained trail that runs along a canal in the heart of Denver. Some beautiful homes and property along the trail. Lots of interesting trees and rural landscape in the middle of Denver. I kept waiting for the tightness to come in my calf. I looked at my Garmin GPS distance, each 1/2 mile was a releif, made it through about 4 miles before it started to get really tight. I asked Jill to stop for a water break at a bench with a great view of the Rockies so I could stretch and get some water. The stretching helped, because when we started again it felt better.

We turned around at a mile marker that is the 6.0 Mile mark on the green markers, which also happened to be 6 miles from where we started (hard to explain, but there are different markers and the green ones started counting downward from about 10 to 6). Anyway we stopped and stretched and had some water and GU. The breakfast of distance runners. Probably about 5 minutes total. Then headed back. We did the first half in about an 8:45 pace.

Jill said she wanted to pick up the pace, on the way back, especially at the end. So we started back with a tailwind and held about an 8:20 pace. My calf really actually loosened up miles 6-10, I was so happy to be on the mend. My knee also was behaving with only some slight discomfort here and there. What a relief to know my running days are not over (okay maybe that was a bit dramatic). When we got to about 1 1/2 miles to go, we stopped and stretched and Jill wanted to do an 8:05, close to her half marathon goal pace. I told her I would try to keep us on that pace with my Garmin GPS and hope my calf behaved at the faster pace. Jill bolted out to about a 7:45 pace for the next mile. At one point we were at a 7:00 pace, she was really running strong.
Overall we ran 12 at 1:42:59, far off what I want to do at Moab, but 12 miles is 12 miles when you come back from an injury. Conditioning wise (aerobic) I felt great, like I could have done 20, but my legs were probably at about the limit and don't want to push it.

Jill and I celebrated with Chocolate milk (her idea, great recovery drink according to her) and Donuts (my idea). Convenience store donuts, not so good for you but, fun to eat.

I am very encouraged by this run and hope that I can build on it and start running and training the way I want to, Moab is getting closer.

Garmin Watch Data for Run

Here's a Link to Jill's Running Blog entry describing the run with a couple of pics.

http://runwithjill.blogspot.com/2009/01/jan-11th.html

Thanks Jill for suggesting this run and for running with me, it was fun.

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