Slornow and Wannabefaster's Winter Group version 3-CLOSED (Page 25)

Nice day, Randy.  I'd be tired, too.

Kind of quiet here this weekend. Everyone must be out training and having fun.

Got outside for a ride this morning then a short run. Heavy week of training and my body feels it. Fortunately tomorrow is a "leg rest" day. Only thing on the schedule per Coach is "2K splash of choice."  I can deal with that as the rest of the week looks more challenging.

My wife and I have averaged about a movie every 2 years over the last 10 years or so but have been to moivies this weekend and last. Last weekend was American Hustle. Good movie although a little slow at times. Acting was really good. 7.5/10. This weekend was Wolf of Wall Street. Entertaining but pretty raunchy. Long at almost 3 hours. Hard to believe most of that stuff really happened but doing some research this morning indicates its pretty accurate. Another 7.5/10

I assume most folks have tomorrow off. We are open but it will be quieter than usual as the courts are closed and the mail won't run. For those that have the day off...sleep in!    

I think Jason hit it on the head. We all have what is our "comfortable pace" for lack of a better term. The pace you feel like you are not pushing and not trying to go slower than you would otherwise. I'm a big believer in keeping the easy runs easy but it can be hard to keep things really easy. For those folks that have run a good bit over the past few years and put in alot of miles I bet we could put tape over the Garmin, go out and do a comfortable run once a week, and the paces would be pretty consistent. Of course accumulated fatigue, heat etc., always can cause some variance but over time we get aa good idea of how our bodies feel at different levels of exertion.  

On the flip side...today in my bike ride outside my HR was low for what felt like a higher effort level. May have been that my legs were tired or that I was riding in aero position for the first time in a while. Kept thinking my HR would go up but not much movement. Good? Bad? I don't know. Contrary to most folks, I feel that I am able to hold higher power on my rollers than I am outside. May just be because that's where I'm riding at least 90% of the time. Oh well, I'm sure that was fascinating    

I hate running slow or easy. If I didn't trust my coach there is no way in hell that I would run the pace that he has me running on easy days. Most days I still can't slow down to the pace that is listed on the workouts. It has also been difficult to run at a 90 cadence at this pace. Jason, running feels better when the Genie gets to come out of her bottle. The pace that coach wants is awkward and feels like running in place. Running slow is working and things are starting to come back together. 

Last year at one point the doctor said I might not ever be able to run again. I remember saying that I would give anything to run again even if it was slow. 

I rushed recovery after surgery and it took a lot longer to recover than we anticipated. One of the best GIFTS that my coach gave me was something that he said after a setback in July.  He told me that I could give up running until January and still be ready to do another Ironman in 2014 and come back stronger. It was at that point that I was able to relax and let the recovery process take its course. Of course once again coach was right. 

When I started running again it was short and slow. 30 seconds running and 30 seconds walking. The first time I ran 1/2 a mile it was heavenly. Something else that also helped was to not refer to what I was doing as running. My definition of running means training for a race. Jason and Randy will tell you that when I started running again we didn't talk about it. 

Running slow is like taking a nasty tasting medicine on a daily basis. You know it is going to taste bad but you take it anyway because the desire to be well (running) outweighs the taste. 

Nelson/Bryan-good work. Always love to see folks improving. Keep it up!