The image above illustrates my weekly running mileage in 2008 (red) v. 2009 (blue). In 2008, I was coming off of injury that kept me out all of 2007 so I started very slowly, with lots of walking and bike commuting (neither shown), so there are more exercise hours, just not running hours. The shuffle was my first race but I ran it at a moderate to tempo pace. I had no week with more than 31 miles until August 11! But late August through early December I was doing 40 to 50 mpw. My two fall road races were PRs.
This year I started off much more quickly, raced from the get-go, and got my butt injury the week before Pineland. Continued racing in June and July seems to have slowed any kind of recovery. And my July road race was 1 minute slower than predicted by my Fall 5K and 10K times. Now I'm trying to ramp up the miles using doubles instead of longer runs. And no races, intervals, or tempos for another few weeks. I'm running the breaker but not racing it (like the scuffle last year).
, when he replaced all routine walking (through parking lots, down hallways, etc. etc.) with running when training for ultramarathons.
The image above illustrates my weekly running mileage in 2008 (red) v. 2009 (blue). In 2008, I was coming off of injury that kept me out all of 2007 so I started very slowly, with lots of walking and bike commuting (neither shown), so there are more exercise hours, just not running hours. The shuffle was my first race but I ran it at a moderate to tempo pace. I had no week with more than 31 miles until August 11! But late August through early December I was doing 40 to 50 mpw. My two fall road races were PRs.
The beach got boring after two hot and clammy runs so yesterday I tried something different. I noticed many, many dirt roads on the satellite images and asked my dad about these and he said to go run at Moses Creek conservation area, which the county purchased several years ago. This turned out to be exactly what I was looking for; old logging roads through sandy pine/live oak forests with some shade (but still hot and clammy). These logging roads aren't made of fill and gravel (like those in Maine) but are simply packed earth. But because the soil is so sandy, the drainage is awesome and they aren't filled with huge rutted pig wallows like the snowmobile trails. Speaking of pigs, they are supposed to be common in these woods but I didn't see any. I did surprise a little doe as I rounded a corner and chased her down the trail a short way and also had to run under a huge Osprey nest with 4 osprey, one flying around with something in its talons, and also came across a nice gopher tortoise on the trail.
