Plan B

Last night found me shuttling my son from Cypress to our church for a youth Fall kickoff celebration taking place Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The event started at 7 pm last night. Plan A was to drop him off early enough to be able to drive out to TH park for the SMARTie Hop workout. This is an easier workout and Coach suggested that I would be able to do it (minus the ). Unfortunately, plan A fell apart as there was a wreck on 290 which caused such a delay that DS was 10 minutes late for his event. So, after dropping him off at Wooday and Voss at 7:10, there's was no way to make it to Memorial and Eldridge by 7:00 without a time machine.

Not to worry, plan B was activated and worked out really well. Plan B was to complete workout at Memorial Park. So, which workout? What to do? I really didn't decide until I got there. I had a lot on my mind thanks to Coaches Steeeve and Bill's talk about "the big picture", having fun, using a training progam as a "guideline", and other things. Also, I had not run since Monday and was concerned about doing a hard run after being "down" a little this past week. So, it that spirit, I decided to do a 30 minute run at easy effort. My schedule called for a 30 minute tempo run. I missed my 20 minute easy run yesterday so I combined the two workouts this way. I took the 30 minutes from the tempo run and the "easy" from the 20 minute easy run to come up with a 30 minute easy run. Like that thought process? Guess I could have had a 20 minute tempo run but with a 10 minute warmup and 10 minute cooldown, where's the tempo? :-)

I had not really eaten since lunch and I figured this was going to be a problem. I did have a Clif bar in the afternoon but that was just supposed to get me through until supper. I was feeling a little hungry. I figured now would be a great time to try a different gel flavor. I picked up a Triple Berry flavored Gu inside the tennis center before heading over to stretch. I liked the flavor a lot better than the Vanilla Bean I took on my 8-miler. Still, to me things taste a little different when you're running so I'm going to have to try this flavor during an actual long run. I'll pick a couple up for tomorrow's 6-miler. I won't need more than 2. Anyway, that really seemed to do the trick, energy-wise.

I did some extra stretching before taking off. I don't talk about it much but my ankle is still stiff and weak. I'm sure the SMARTie Hop and Silly Walks-type exercises are just what the doctor would order for strengthening and engaging those accessory muscles in the foot and lower leg. I need to take a look at the Silly Walk routine and start doing that on my own before workouts or on my days off. Anyway, the stretching felt good. I put away the HRM and just decided to run. I even took that little pod thing (actually called an accelerometer or something) from my shoe. I felt naked. Scary thought! The only stats I recorded were mile splits on my stopwatch. During the run, I did a few very brief pickups. They were maybe 30-50 yards. Just accelerating for a very brief distance to about 85% of an all out sprint. I don't know if you call this a strider or a mini-strider. I don't think that's called a pickup. Heck, I don't know. I just wanted to give my body and especially my ankle a small hint of what it feels like to move a little faster. I think I did 3 of these, two during my first mile and 1 on the second mile. Once, I stretched out my stride a longer. The other two, I exaggerated a faster, shorter turnover. I was just sort of playing around with different strides and seeing how it felt. It was all good.

Overall, for an easy run, it was a bit quicker than usual. Stats:

Total time: 30:03
Total distance: ~2.15 miles
Mile 1 - 13:46
Mile 2 - 14:08
the change(~.15 miles) - 2:07 (~14:00 m/mile pace)

I had fun last night. Didn't feel like I killed myself but didn't walk either. Overall, a pretty good workout. 6 miles on Saturday.