Week in Review with Motivation

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

 

 

        Let me start this posting by saying thank you to all the men and woman who have served and continue to serve this country to allow us all our freedom.

 

         Normally I do a posting on Sunday then I will do a posting on Monday which is my motivation quote for the week.  Since This weekend was a holiday I am going to do one post here all mixed in one.  First my week in review.

 

Monday:  I did a 4 mile run, and my goal was to run a solid pace without constantly looking at my watch.  The course I did was a little challenging because mile 1 is all down hill and mile 2 is all uphill. Mile 3 and 4 are mostly flat with small rolling hills thrown in.  My first mile split was a 8:02. I tried to hold back on the hill a bit this way I didn't set a blistering pace. Mile 2 split was a 8:26. I was ok with this because of the hill. I figured I would make it up on mile 3 and 4.  Mile 3 I knew I had some ground to make up and finished it with a 8:05 pace.  I felt pretty good and had a lot of energy so I really picked it up the last mile and ran a 7:15.   Not exactly what I wanted to do since I was trying to finish it at 32 minutes exactly.  I finished with a 31.48, 12 seconds faster but my splits were all over the place.

 

Tuesday:  Speed work day.  I went to the track but there was a youth track team having an event so I found a loop on the street that was a little longer than a quarter mile. It had a nice up hill and a slight down hill in it.  I ran it 6 times walking 90 seconds between each loop.  When I got back to my place I decided to use the hill into my place and run up and down it 10 times.  The hill is a steep one and is about 200 yards long. I would sprint up the hill and jog down and repeat.  When I finished I started to feel some pain in my right hip.

 

Wednesday:  I took this day to do some stretching and foam rolling.  I still felt pain in my hip and wanted to take it easy.

 

Thursday:  If you read my blog earlier you would know this day was my "Superstition Day".  I ended up running 4.5 miles and ran my fastest 5K in training in a while.  When I finished though I felt pain in my hip again. I decided I needed to cut back running for the rest of the week and let it heal.

 

Friday:  Rest day, I didn't stretch or anything. I wanted to let my body fully recover from whatever was hurting me.

 

Saturday:  I woke up with all intentions of doing a long run, but after I was dressed and started to stretch I could feel the pain in my hip.  I decided to forgo running for the day and just stretch a little.  Saturday night my wife and I had one of my friends weddings to attend so me not running gave me more time to get ready.        Here are a few pictures from the evening. Thank god someone took pictures because I may have drank a little to much that night and parts of the night are a blur.   The picture above to the left is my and a few of my friends singing a song.  I don't think I actually ever sang, I think I ended up there for moral support.  The picture to the right is obviously me and my wife.  Can I just say not to many guys can rock a shirt like that but damn do I make it look good.   My wife did criticize it thought for not matching her dress.  Oh well, we still looked pretty good if you ask me.  The picture below is a group of my friends. We took this picture because one of our friends couldn't make it to the wedding since his wife was in another wedding. But us being the good friends we are thought we should take a picture of us looking confused and send it to him asking where he is.  I am sure he would of done the same thing to me if I wasn't there so its a good picture.   

 

Sunday: I woke up and lets just say I was a little hurt from the night before.  We had a few people over for brunch so I had to be up early.  After we ate I contemplated going for a short run but I still felt like my hip was giving me problems.  One thing I have learned is to listen to the body. I am lucky that my big races aren't until the end of the summer, early fall. I can afford to take a little time off to make sure I don't injure myself. 

Monday(Today): After going to my friends house for a cook out and swimming I came home and felt like my hip was feeling ok. I went for a short 3 mile run to just see how my hip was feeling. It actually didn't hurt at all and I still ran under a 9 minute pace.  Not fast but fast enough that I could tell if there was going to be a problem with my hip.  Tomorrow I will go for a bit longer run but I am going to run from where I work and run into town.  It will be a flat course and one that won't push my hip to hard.  I will still be cautious for a while just to make sure it is ok. 

So I leave you with a motivational quote to get you through the week during those difficult runs.

How was your Memorial Day Weekend?