Ouch…

I’m supposed to run 2 loops of the Devon trail tomorrow so I can get my last real training run in before we head to Montana on Saturday on our way to South Dakota. But my right side muscles in my back all the way from the top of my shoulder to the middle of my butt is sore and the muscle on my left side feels bigger as if inflamed. I ran yesterday with it and I think I can still do it but I am moving pretty gingerly today. Anyway, yah, lots of pain that seems not to be related to running. It just is. Be nice for a little relief. I know it will go away in a week so I’ll just suck it up and train anyway because I will have so few days left to train before my next race I can’t miss this one. Besides, at my age pain is a way of life and if I didn’t ignore at least some pain, I just would never do anything.

I did yesterday’s 7.5 km in 51 minutes, 2 minutes faster than last time but I still could not run the hills towards the end. I had no time to recover, between hills, so tomorrow I will try something different. I am going to go a lot slower on the flat and run up the hills as fast as I can. Even if I have to walk between hills, that’s ok as long as I run up the hills. This is not a race strategy, it is a training one. I want to wear out my leg muscles running up those hills.

I would like to do the two loops tomorrow (for a total of 15 km) in under 1 hour and 40 minutes, which works out to 50 minutes per loop. I don’t really think I can do it since I gave everything I had to run one loop in 51 minutes and I need to run two tomorrow. I usually run negative splits too, so it will be interesting to see how I do.

The Way of the Cross hill is still “closed” but I am running it anyway by going around the plastic fence blocking off the trail. There has been a lot of marking going on by workers who sprayed paint lines on the trail where the worst of the landslide and associated crevices are, and whatnot, but I have never run into any workers. I hope I don’t see any tomorrow because I would hate to defy the closure and run around them anyway. Because unless they can catch me they aren’t stopping me. It will be so much easier if there is no one there when I run through the closure. It will be the last time I run this race course before the race itself June 16th.

Wish me luck.