Feeling yesterday's run, today

This morning, my plan was to do a "nice" 4-miler, hopefully at 7:30 pace as kind of a recovery from the "fast" 6-miler yesterday. I managed that, in fact it was 4.75 miles at 7:23. But, I felt pretty crappy throughout. My right ankle has been bothering me. Back in PT, the therapist said, "Wow, your ankles are really inflexible, let's work on those." I never really had ankle problems before, but my right ankle is now stiffer than ever since they worked on it. Damn it. It's always something. It took about a mile to loosen it up. I actually considered turning around after 0.25 miles because it was hurting.

My decision for tomorrow is whether to do the Pirate 5k in Havre de Grace, prior to heading up to NJ, or to run with the Pacemakers before the drive to Jersey. Oh decisions.

First time running the Thursday morning "Under Armour" run

At 6:00 am today, I went to the Under Armour Brandhouse in Harbor East. This is a run that a friend, Cory, has put together for a fairly quick pace... around 7:00 min/mile for 6 miles. Most of the other folks... OK the three others today, run there from their respective homes, and run back. I chose to bike down, because running there would have resulted in an overall distance of 10 miles. A little too far to travel for my current fitness level, and the last thing I want to do is push my distance too far , too fast and get laid up again with another injury.

The run goes from the store at Harbor East, along the harbor and some streets (Key Hwy) to the Under Armour HQ, and back again. As advertised, we kept a 7:00 min pace, although I think we started a little quicker than that. It felt good to stretch my legs like that. My last few runs have been slower dur to slower company and that puking incident. It was soupy out there with the humidity. I was soaked about a mile in. The bike ride home actually let me get some real air movement, and helped dry me off and cool me down. Cheers.

First time I have ever puked to start a run

Last night was my usual Tuesday pizza and beer run. It was 93 degrees at the start, and I left my apartment a tad late. So I pushed it to run 7:00's down to the meetup location. This was after drinking a cup of coffee and eating a large spoonful of marinated mushrooms (wonderful pre-run nutrition). My stomach was feeling a little weird for those two miles to the meetup spot, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle.

We waited about 5 minutes for the last person to show up and headed off for a 5-miler around the harbor. About five steps into it, I let out what I thought would be a small burp... Nope... it was that cup full of coffee and some mushrooms. Thankfully I was right next to a trash can at the time, and managed to hold it till I got over the can. A couple of swishes of water, spit, repeat. Off I went. Of course I was fighting stomach cramps after that, and basically kept it in the 8:30 range for the rest of the run. Felt OK at the end.

Then, on the walk to the pizza joint, we saw quite the storm heading towards us. We ended up sprinting the last three blocks. The wind was so strong that all of the street debris was smacking us in the face. It took a good five minutes of constant blinking in the pizza place to get the stuff out of my eyes.