Still alive

Yeah, I'm still alive and kicking, in case you were wondering. I've just been really lazy about blogging. Maybe I should have made a resolution about that....

In any case, running is going reasonably well right now, although the number 80 seems to be cursed for me. My goal is to hit 80 miles per week unless it's a cutback week, but that number has proven to be elusive. The week before last, I got to 78, which is tantalizingly close and then last week I was on pace for 81, but then got sick on Thursday and missed out on 10 miles to finish with 71. So, the quest for 80 begins again this week (so far, so good).

I'm going to try and get back in the habit of recording my weekly runs on here, so here's how last week shook out:

Sunday - 8 miles. I had hoped to get 10, but about 4 miles in I was experiencing some significant soreness in my left hip, which I had also felt the day before on my long run. So, I turned around and headed in early, hoping to spare my hip any more damage.

Monday - 10 miles. This was a progression run. Started at about 8:30 pace the first mile and gradually took it down to 6:39 pace for the 8th mile and then ran 2 miles easy as a cooldown. The hip felt fine.

Tuesday - 10 miles. Just an easy 10, nothing spectacular.

Wednesday - 14 miles. As is typical of an early morning medium-long run, the first 7 or 8 miles felt pretty sluggish and then my body finally woke up and the last few miles ended up being the best.

Thursday - 2 miles. I woke up and immediately knew that something just didn't feel right. I didn't feel sick exactly, but my stomach felt....odd. I figured the only way to find out if I was indeed sick was to go running, so I did. The intention was to run 12 miles, but by the time I reached the half mile point I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen and by the time I reached the one mile point I was wishing I had turned around and headed for home after a half mile. When I did get home after 2 very slow, miserable miles, I climbed back into bed and slept for 5 more hours. When I finally woke up, I had no idea if I'd actually run that morning or if it had just been a dream. But, my trusty old Garmin confirmed that I had indeed gone running, plus the fact that I still had my running shorts and socks on.

Friday - 8 miles. I still didn't feel all that spectacular, but again I decided the only way to find out how sick I was was to go running. This one went much better obviously.

Saturday - 18 miles. I headed out on a long loop that features a long, gradual uphill for the first 4 miles, a sharp downhill, some flat running and then a bunch of small uphills before a final downhill. In other words, it's a fairly hilly loop. My goal was to run close to an even split, knowing that I would have to push it a little toward the end to accomplish that thanks to the late uphills. I ended up feeling really good and managed a 20 second negative split, which is the first time I've ever done that on that loop (although I think I've only run it 3 times and this was the first time the wind wasn't a significant factor).

Total - 71 miles

In other news, I'm officially registered and my entry has been confirmed for the Bighorn Mountain Trail 50 mile in June. I ran the 50K at Bighorn last year as a training run for the Lean Horse 50 mile and had a blast. This year, I'm using the 50 mile as a training run for my ultimate goal of finishing the Lean Horse 100 in August.

Also, the 3 on 3 basketball league at the Spearfish Rec Center starts this evening. I'm on a team with some guys from work. We might suck, we might be decent. Hard to say. Depends on how many of the other teams are loaded with ex-Black Hills St. players. Either way, should make for some good cross training.