Mornin' (barely) everyone.

It's after 11:00 - where is everyone?

Being gluten-free made it easy to avoid donuts yesterday, thank goodness. Otherwise, there could have been trouble.

"I thought about slowing it down. That required me to take a longer back stride.  That in turn increased my pace with very little effort. I am wondering if the hamstring problems I had a few years ago have led me to shorten my back stride? Maybe thinking about my cadence now will make the longer back stride a habit I do not have to think about later." You could be a racewalker, Twocat! We have a short stride in front, with a longer one in back that helps facilitate a good toe-off to get that leg moving forward more quickly. Sometimes a longer back stride feels slower but, as you experienced, that is not always the case.

I left home at 6:15 and drove to Portsmouth (NH) for 8.9 RW miles on the New Castle loop in coastal foggy 57F temps before the sun burned through. When I got back to my car, I drove to the local farmer's market to pick up some fresh goodies for the week. Then I drove back to the HS track for our morning racewalking training session (with the cutest little kids learning lacrosse on the infield). I did another mile there with a woman who came back after almost a year off from racewalking. But she hasn't lost much speed, and so made me work to pace her for a couple of laps. Now DW and I are heading to a greenhouse in the woods to get some plants for window boxes, and I'm looking for a particular groundcover I bought there a couple of years ago. Tonight, we're heading up north a bit to see fabulous guitarist Ed Gerhard give a low-key, no frills concert in his hometown of Strafford, NH.

Have a greta Saturday!

Jay

coastwalker really interesting how racewalking works! Thanks for the explanation.

I ran with the local Joggers Club today. The group headed up to the local high school track to do intervals. Everyone else did like one lap around and quit.  Next they stood and yakked for a bit. Finally, they decided to run the first of the crazy distance routes from the town's summer race series. How actually did intervals. Yep, the really stupid one. That would be me.  I was horrible! My typical interval pace goal is in the low 7 minute range. I could not consistently get below 8 today. In the end 5x1000m intervals at a pace I hope to run marathons at. 

Twocat, interesting about changing your stride.  One day I thought to myself, I should flick my feet back on push off, use those calves and hammies.  And for the same effort it seemed, I ran a lot faster.

I did 12 miles at the horse trails.  I say "did" because I can't say "ran".  The last 4 miles were 80% walking.  I was hurting everywhere by mile 5.  Everywhere!  Feet, hips, knee and muscles.  It was painful just walking that last 4 miles.  I think my body is trying to tell me something.  Anyhow, on the bright side, I saw a bobcat, just sauntering down the trail, about 75 feet in front of me.  Very cool!  No phone with me to take a photo.  If I had been running, I would never have seen him - would have made too much noise and he would have run off.

 

 

No cellphone service here at the house we rented, but there is wi-fi, so I can check in here but my boss cannot text me with questions about work. 

 

Happy Saturday!

I hope your boss is reading up about the new overtime rule.... BTW, I am glad you are having fun.

Twocat, very interesting remarks about strides. I will have to pay more attention to that next time I go out.

Enkie, nice running.

Speaking of going out, the Easy Pacer and I went our for a 6 miles running date this early  morning. It was hot already at 6am.

I hope to run about 10 miles tomorrow...if the weather cools off a little bit.

Cheers,

Posie