Redemption Run 10/2

Today's run was much delayed and rather uncertain for most of the day.  I woke up late this morning with my upper body sore as all get out.  The quad felt much better after a night of muscle cream, but I was worried that if I tried to run today that I would have a repeat of last weeks piss poor performance.  But as the day progressed I really wanted to get outside and run.  The weather in Raleigh was actually great for the first time in what feels like months, so I went to Umstead at around noon for my Saturday run.  My energy level felt good, but the soreness I felt had me really worried.  I didn't think that the upper body soreness would hold me back, but I didn't want to injure my quad.  Next Saturday is my next 5k, which made me both want to run but also more than a little worried about aggravating my heels or hurting the quad.  But having just put in a lackluster effort on Friday in class and the aforementioned piss poor performance on last week's run, I was determined to run today.

This is a small bridge that I run accross as part of my run.

Everything ended up going much better that I had hope it would.  I started out a bit gingerly and didn't try to push things at the beginning.  The quad was holding up well, but the upper body soreness was really annoying for the first mile of the run.  My energy level was very different from last week, and I knew fairly early in the run that I should be able to complete it if i paced myself.  By the half way point the run was going well, I had stuck to my plan, and was just a few minutes behind my normal pace.  The mild burning in the quad that I felt at the beginning of the run had subsided, and the soreness of my upper body had just wasn't flaring up as much as it was staying on an even keel.  Flare ups seem much worse to take, so just past the half way marker I decided to open it up a bit and see if I could get back on pace.  Once I got passed the place where I stopped running last week, I was able to shake off my last distraction and really get down to running.  The trail was in good shape considering the 6 inches of rain we got this week.  I thought that it would be damp, but it wasn't.  The only problem I had was staying on the trail because of all of the fallen leaves and pine needles.  I almost lost the trail and ran into the woods twice.  Over the last eight minutes, I pushed it hard than I think that I ever have on one of these runs.  I made up all of the time, I needed to and completed the run in exactly 45 mins.  By the time that I hit the bridge to stop running, my chest was pounding and lungs were burning, but all of the soreness had vanished.  Once I caught my breath, I felt great.  I am very glad that I did this run because it helped me to put those crappy workout's to bed.  Now, I have a couple of days of light workouts and then the 5k on Saturday.  I can't wait!