Notes
My first real workout post surgery. It had been raining all morning long, but luckily it let up enough in the afternoon to get in a workout. Goal was 14 miles between 6:00 and 5:30.
For the workout, I got dropped of at the bottom of the hill below Amanda's house at the end of the Stratton Brook Park. After a 12min warmup, I got going on the workout. Started off at a fairly relaxed effort, though for the first couple miles I didn't really feel like my hip flexors were firing that well. Eventually I got in a grove around miles 4 and started clicking off miles in the low 5:40s. While my breathing and legs weren't as relaxed as I would have liked, I didn't feel like I was pressing too hard.
Turning around at 4.5 miles, I starting running into some stiff headwind which would be against me for the majority of the remaining 9.5 miles. At 10 miles, I had to slosh through ankle deep water for about 100m which left my shoes completely soaked, but my pace didn't seem so suffer any.
While I was definitely working hard, everything was going smoothly until the last mile when I made the turn up the hill to Amanda's house. In retrospect, I should have just kept on running flat for the remaining mile and just jogged up the hill to Amanda's house, but the run was already going to be about 17 miles long, and I didn't really feel like making it any longer. As soon as I started up the steep incline, my legs gave out and my breathing got really ragged. Though I couldn't reasonably have expected to maintain the 5:45 pace going up a hill that steep, I definitely came undone more than I was hoping.
Aside from the last mile, I think it was a fairly good workout. With the exception of the last mile, my average pace was 5:46, so right in the range I was shooting for. Though I haven't gotten on a scale lately, I suspect that I may have put on a few pounds over the past couple weeks. Going forward, I'm definitely going to make a conscious effort to get back to my normal running/racing weight of 158.