2/6/10

The past 5 days have been a bit up and down for me as I have had to really listen to my body and rest when I needed to. Thursday and Friday were just easy days for me although I did my strides on Friday on an incline which quickly tired me out! I also left work after just 2 hours on Thursday as my stomach was bothering me and I felt like I was going to be sick. I kept having to run to the bathroom so my workmates were kind enough to let me go home and try and sort it out. I was fine by the next day so I don't know what was wrong.

Julie and I headed down to Phoenix again on Friday as it was going to be a long weekend (Julie had Monday off of work for Memorial day) so we left right after she finished work. We grabbed a great dinner at Burritos Fiesta before we left Flagstaff. I had an amazing Burrito so that made me very happy! We got down the road quickly and relaxed outside in the back garden with Julie's parents.

I woke up at 7am the next morning so I could get out to do a long run before it got too hot. I set out with the idea of doing 15 miles at a good pace but as soon as I got to the first hill I could really feel my left hamstring pulling so I eased off the pace and stopped at an hour of running to be safe.

After some breakfast, Julie, Cory (Julie's younger brother) and I headed out to Scottsdale to meet Michael (Julie's older brother). We first headed over to a supplement store that was doing a promotional day with lots of free stuff. They gave me a bag of stuff but I gave it to Michael as a quick glance at most of the products showed that I would fail a drug test if I took them. We then headed over to a kilt hire place to get the guys fitted for kilts as they will need them for the wedding. It was run by a typically Scottish guy and the guys seemed like they had fun trying them on. After doing that we headed over and had a spot of lunch before heading to the Phoenix rock gym. This is a big rock climbing gym located in Tempe and I had been here once before when Julie and I took my sister and her husband back in November. As usual it was a lot of fun and very tiring but Julie and I both managed to climb a rope (something neither of us had done before) and Cory had fun on the hanging rings. We also had a little speed competition at the end of the day and you can see how it went below.

We all headed back to Julie's parent's house and had dinner while watching the Phoenix Suns lose to the LA Lakers for the Western conference title. This was a good point to head back out to Scottsdale to head out with Michael and some friends. We had a good night but did get to bed pretty late.

We woke up pretty late the next day and it was already far too hot to run so we headed out to meet Julie's high school coach who I had never met before. We had a good talk before heading out to lunch at a mongolian grill. This place was amazing! You get a big bowl and fill it with all the ingredients you can and then they cook it up for you. I thought I was going to be really full and not be able to eat much dinner but because its mostly vegetables, you are fine by dinner time and ready to eat again. Once we got back, Tim (Julie's coach) sat me down and grilled me on a lot about what drives me to be a good runner and where I get my motivation from. This was really good as he made me realise a lot of things that I had never thought about but because I was verbalising it I was realising why I became a good runner and how and why I interact with all my coaches (past and present).

I intended to get a good run done once the sun had gone down but I was really tired and with my hamstring still tight, I decided to take the day off and let it rest.

I woke up a little late on Monday morning so it was already 100F when I headed out to get my workout done. I was lucky that it was a speed session of 3*300m hard, 200m jog, 200m hard, 200m jog, 100m hard, 400m jog and it wasn't going to take long so I was happy about that. I shortened the warm up to 15 mins as I was sweating like crazy and was beginning to get tired. I did my usual drills and started the workout feeling pretty rusty. I ran 46 secs, 30 secs and 14 secs for the first set and I decided that wasn't good enough so I picked it up each rep after that. I ran 44 secs, 29 secs, and 13secs and felt much better. The final set went well and I ran 41 secs, 26 secs, and 13 secs. I was happy with the way it went as I felt fine running at speed and I wasn't exhausted after it (Greg told me to save something for the workout on Wednesday). THe rest of the day was spent relaxing and doing crosswords by the pool as Julie and her mum went to see the new Sex in the City film. I headed out for my second run around 5pm and it was still blazing hot. It was fine though as there was a bit of a wind and that was cooling me off nicely. After a great dinner of steak, corn on the cob and leftovers, we drove back up the mountain and unpacked.

I woke up on Tuesday morning feeling pretty tired so went out to the gym and ran out on Woody Mountain Road. I started out slow as I was against the wind and feeling tired but after around 3 miles I started to feel ok and by the time I turned around I was flying along. I finished the run feeling good and went into the gym to get my core workout done.

After a nice sleep, I headed out again for a second run at 2pm as I had work at 3.30pm. I was a little tired but I expected that and I just took it nice and easy. I headed into work and it actually turned out to be pretty busy for a Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning was a bit of a disaster for me as I was supposed to be doing a workout but I felt how tired my legs were right when I stepped out of bed. I went out to Trina's loop with the intention of getting a workout done but just ended up running nice and easy with Carlson. I really needed this and i'm now looking forward to doing a good workout tomorrow on the track. I have to head out for my second run early again as I have work again but then I have the rest of the week off.