Notes
Had a good long run with Dimitri after karate class this morning. I ran 13 and he ran 7 (I believe). I ran from Dow Jones to Kingston and met him at the entrance to the path. It's more difficult these days to run right after karate since we have stepped up our training intensity to prepare for the May 5 tournament. But I got it done.
When we began running, I warned Dimitri that I might need to let him surge ahead during the planned two miles at 7:20 pace, explaining that I had done 9 miles with 6x600@5k pace late last night, and a somewhat more intense karate class this morning. I was anxious as we closed in on mile 6 (6 for me, 4 for Dimitri), wondering if I would have trouble with the pace. But I settled into it and fortunately there was a rabbit in a red shirt about 100 meters ahead that I trained my eyes on and mentally latched onto. So the two miles went well and the remainder of the miles to reach 13 total went well too.
I did notice a strange feeling in my left toes, as if they were hitting the ground too hard. It could be the two hard runs back to back, or it could be the new socks and shoes (which came in by FedEx yesterday). I ordered a pair of Brooks Ghost 3 from brooksrunning.com about 10 days ago because my Brooks Ghost 4 are showing signs of age.
Also, my knee tightened up when I stopped after breaking off from Dimitri. As I began climbing the hill in Kingston headed back toward Ridge road, my gait was unbalanced as my knee was in pain. But after I crested the hill, it felt better but I took that mile slow (9:00) and by the next mile my knee was feeling good again and I turned in an 8:09 even with the Route 1 stoplight.