At the beginning

3pm, Dec. 2, 2008
New shoes for the first official training run of my 2009 Boston Marathon training schedule. Yesterday was day one but it being a Monday was a rest day; hence today is the first run.
And here is the schedule for today:

• 5.5 or 7 mile @base pace, which for me is between 7 and 8 minutes per mile.
• High knees 2X20seconds (p.96)
• Bounding 2X20 (p.96)
• Optional--run or cross train for 20-60 minutes, and let's just say that is not going to happen today.

And off I go. I came into work early today and am going to head out now at 3:20pm and run along the Charles River.
11:01pm, same day.
Pretty nice afternoon for a run. I headed down to the Charles River, which is about half a mile away down along the west side of the famous Mt Auburn Cemetery (not open to runners or cyclists), and down a short hill. Wore a light fleece hat and didn't wear gloves. Long running pants and 2 lightish shirts--about the right combination. I headed east along the river on the bike/multiuse path for about .75 of a mile and crossed the Eliot Bridge and changed direction going about 1.5 miles or so to the Beacon St. bridge. I did a total of about 6.75 miles in just under an hour. That works out at about eight and a quarter minutes per mile. Felt pretty good--nothing too eventful happened, the sun shone, there were a few people in boats on the river, schulls, I think they are called, a state trooper [police officer] at the scene of a minor car accident, a few groups of runners--one group looked like a college team of about 6 guys, and two female harvard students who refused to yield any of the bike path to me. Damn them and their floppy pony tails and their ostentatious harvard clothing.
Aches and pains? This will be a regular feature, as I always seem to have at least one or two or three niggles. Nothing too much today, just my right calf that has been giving me a little grief now for about a month. I hurt it running on a rough trail in Middlesex Fells partly because I wore my light trail shoes that don't have any cushioning to speak of. Right ankle, seemingly in sympathy is also chipping in with a harmonious twang. I started some strengthening exercises for it yesterday and hope to get it looked at soon by a professional. My left knee gave me quite a little jolt about halfway through and had me hopping for a few steps. It does that now and again and leaves me wondering if or more likely when something really bad is going to happen. Finally, the new shoes worked fine. I don't know if running shoes need breaking in--they might have been a tad stiff, and to be honest I am not sure I felt much difference between them and my old ones which I got in late July. I will still use the old ones for wet and dirty days and if I run trails. That is it for today--a nice day for running, and it felt pretty good to be out. Here is what tomorrow calls for:

• Dynamic Stretch Warmup (p125ff)
• 1.5 mile warmup @ recovery
• 6/8 X 75 sec hill reps @ 1mile pace w/ 2.5 min active recovery (p59 &64)
• 2 mile cool down @ recovery

This is always my least favorite because it hurts the most--that would be becuase of the hill part--it kind of beats you up. I need to decide what hill to use. I have a couple in mind. I will try to link to the google map and photos option so you can get a look at the one I choose.