Ouch, what was that?

It's that time in training: the point at which the workouts stack up, the niggling aches and pains surface, and the doubt creeps in. It's also that time where I live by the watch, with every workout being a benchmark of my conditioning and speed. No long aimless runs in the hills, no 5 miles around the block; break out the Garmin and measure your pace as often as possible (hey when will we be able to project our pace on the inside of our sunglasses?).

It's also a time to run alone on these days, as I like to prioritize hitting the pace vs getting in a social run.

Today's workout was 11 miles at marathon pace, which is 8 min/mile. I didn't have trouble with the pace, aerobically I wasn't working too hard. But my knee is still hurting from the 20 miles I did on Saturday. It was painful from 3 miles on, not a grit your teeth and try not to stop pain, just the level of pain that tells you not to tempt fate.

My back hurts too. Sore all the time. At night it takes me a few seconds to stand up straight. It isn't so bad that I can't get through it, that I know. No killer injuries, just normal pain after going 20. But it made getting through today's workout a challenge, mentally and physically.


Hopefully the rest of the week will be fairly uneventful. I have a track session Thursday (3 x 1 mile a 6:40) and the Kaiser Permanente Half in SF on Sunday. That should be fun, I know probably 10 or more runners and look forward to seeing them on the course. This race is perfect for that due to the out and back along Ocean Beach. Goal time is 1:40, which is doable but will definitely be an effort. PR for the distance is 1:32 but that was 10 years ago, so I don't plan to get back there immediately... Race prep tomorrow, race report coming.

IN OTHER NEWS: So what do we think of Obama so far? He conducted his first TV interview of his presidency this week, and he chose an Arab network.

Part 1
Part 2

He is definitely acting quickly, apparently signing executive orders during the inauguration. The interesting thing is that this meltdown may give him the same support for tighter regulations that Bush had for clamping down on national security post 9-11. Economists and conservatives will be chomping at the bit to criticize the rollbacks in free-market poicies, matched with economic stimulus, but they will have to bide their time, there is no political support for laissez faire ideas at the moment, who wants to trust the free market to get us out of this mess?