My Ash-heels

I did a bit of a recovery run today, a slow 2.5 miles around my house to try to loosen up the muscles that were screaming after yesterdays race. My achilles/lower calf area is very sore in both legs, hence the title of the post. I forget what book it was, but in some classic literary work, somebody referred to Achilles as ash-heels, and I remember my english teacher thinking that was clever because his only weakness was his heel. Ahh, the simple pleasures in life.

It is snowing again here in Philly... hopefully the last of the year. I am excited for the shoveling I get to do tomorrow. There is just something about shoveling that I simply love. I think the fact that is just straight manual labor and the fact that you can just put your work in and instantly see the results is something very beautiful, especially because I don't normally see progress like that at work. And it gives a nice arm/back workout that I most desperately need. I have been neglecting anything that could be construed as a resistance workout... not because I don't think it is a good idea... but simply because I am lazy. and speaking of laziness... this is all the effort I am going to put into this post...

My Ugly Mudder

The ugly mudder is a 7 mile trail race up in Reading, PA on Mt. Penn. the website says that the course is pretty hard and stated that you would probably run 1.5 to 2 minutes off your pace for a 7 mile road race. I figured, based on this, that I should be able to do 8.5 or 9 minute miles and finish up in under an hour.

I drove up with 4 other guys from Philly Runners, a group I run with, and one of the guys has done a similar race before and suggested going out very fast at the beginning or you will get stuck behind a bunch of slow people in the singletrack parts of the course. so I started out at a pretty brisk pace... that is until we got the first hill. Because of the recent snow, the footing going up the hill wasn't very good so it got pretty backed up. I ended up trying to go wide of the course to pass some folks ... but I don't think i made up much ground with that tactic. It took so long to get to the first mile marker, I had come to the conclusion that they weren't marking any miles on the course... it took around 10 minutes for the first mile.

The hills were unbelievably hard and they seemed to be coming from some infinite supply. I don't know if I have ever felt such pain in my quads before. It was by far the hardest race I have ever run. I was able to make it through the first few big uphills without walking and was promising myself that I would make up time on the uphills and not walk. By the hills in the 5th and 6th miles, I had resigned my self to catching up to the person in front of me who was walking, and then walk behind them. Still a reasonable goal. Apparently there was a beer stop just before the 5 mile marker, but I completely missed it... i must have been delusional because I thought we ran by the pagoda, but apparently nobody else saw it.

For crowd enjoyment, 100 yards from the finish the course ran up a 75-yd mud hill that must have been 100% grade. I was able to make it up the hill by clawing my way up with both hands with one of the guys from the group laughing at me from the top. Overall, the race was a ton of fun, I was very happy with how I ran, and all of the pain was worth it for the Fudge stripe cookies and twizzlers at the end! I ended up 21st overall with a time around 1 hour 6 or 7 minutes ( a pace of just under 10 mins per mile). I don't know what place I got in my division or how many total runners there were yet, but I will update this post when the official results are posted.

My Unoriginal Thoughts

I have decided that the naming for each blog entry will start with "My...". this is a rip-off from the naming convention for the Scrubs episodes and will reflect my steve-centric view of the world... which this blog is surely to highlight.

I made an Ali like return to the road this morning. I ran just under 5 miles this morning. The first 2.5 coming in around an 8 min. pace and the return 2.5 coming in at just over 7:40 pace. I was pretty happy with the run because the cold didn't really effect me much... a little more coughing than usually, but no real problems. My legs felt a bit like bricks, but i guess that is to be expected after taking 4 days off. the strange thing was that all of the little aches and pains in my shins and feet were still there. I figured the time off would help them heal up a bit... nothing serious... just my body telling me that I have both shins and feet. thanks for that.

Tomorrow is the ugly mudder and it looks to be nice weather, though a little cold (~25ish). I plan on bringing my camera, so if I get any good pictures I will definitely drop the link on here. wish me luck!!!

My First Blog

So this is my first ever blog entry. Who knows if I am going to stick with it or even if I am going to enjoy doing it. It seems like a good place to vent off all the random thoughts I have in my head everyday, so we will see what happens. Chances are this blog will be read by no one and entertaining to even fewer... but ohh well. Maybe it will be cathartic (sp?) for me.

So this whole getting a cold thing sucks. This is the second cold I have had in about 3 months. Because of the cold, I skipped running the last two or three mornings and I am planning on taking the day off tomorrow as well. I am running the ugly mudder sunday, so maybe the cold is a bit of a tapering in disguise. Granted if I cough up a lung on saturday, I am not sure how much tapering will help my race time. Hopefully I will get back on the road on saturday to make sure my legs still work. It will be my first trail race and looks to be a sloppy one!!

Being a minnesota boy at heart, it pains me to whine about the weather, but come on... lets finish up with the snow already. I can't wait for spring...