What ever it takes!

I'm going to give my body 1 week off, that's it.  If it can't get better in 1 week I quit.

48 laps in the pool in 60 minutes, then hottub and steam room.

45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, tried to keep my HR at 140, 30 minutes of weights.

Starting to feel a little better, maybe 1 more day off and then an easy run on Thursday to see how things are.

I was planning on taking today off from running as well, but I decided to try coach Steve's advice and just try a nice easy run.  Stretched out for about 10 minutes before, and then hit it pretty slow, couldn't hold myself at the suggested 8:00 pace the whole time but still a very easy run and felt pretty good.  I actually think my legs feel much better now than they would have without a run.  

Did some crazy drills just to keep myself entertained while running, high knees, butt kicks, toe strikes, fast strides, long strides.  Just kind of messed around trying to find a smooth stride that didn't affect the hip and groin area as much.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	8:05	8:05
2	15:51	7:46
3	23:44	7:53
4	31:43	7:59
5	39:27	7:44
6	46:56	7:29
7	54:42	7:46
8	1:02:13	7:31
Total	1:02:18	7:46

Feeling 100% better today which oddly is exactly why I didn't run,  I could tell that 1 mile into my run I would have started feeling good, pushed myself and ended up getting hurt again.  Yeah, I have a self restraint problem.  So I did something that I can't hurt myself doing, swimming.    I did 4 x 500 meter intervals (10 laps) no stopping, flip turns at every turn. and then 30 second rests in between. and then the last 400 meters easy.  48 laps in ~55 minutes.

I have a hard time deciding if swimming is a good cross training for running at all, I don't wear a HR monitor so I have no idea how hard of a cardio workout it is, it seems much easier than running and I've never felt completely worn out after a swim like after a good run.  I do like the rhythmic breathing aspect of it, so I guess if anything it a good breathing workout.

There are pluses and minuses to being married to a massage therapist.  Plus- your spouse can massage places (that really need it) that a normal massage therapist would probably get arrested for massaging, (at least in Utah).  Or you'd get arrested for asking :).  Minus- it's like pulling teeth to get a massage, sometimes it would be easier to just fork out the $65 at a spa than dealing with all the fighting and anguish of asking your wife for a favor.  Anyway I convinced Britt to work on my "problem areas" last night which seemed to help quite a bit.

Tried to keep a slow pace but just wanted to get through my run, so I kept a pace that seemed like it wasn't pulling anything, legs were pretty sore and I can tell I've lost some fitness over the last 2 weeks, my lungs were burning, which my lungs never burn, but I made it through.

Forgot my watch today.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
5	35:00	7:00
10	1:09:30	6:54
Total	1:09:30	6:56

I just signed up for St. George Marathon,  basically been training for it now for 2 1/2 years but I'm a sure in this year, 3rd times a charm.  I'm going to put it all out on the line for St. George,  everything else is just build up.

I was hurting pretty bad yesterday and wasn't really sure I should run today, but I told Ryan I would run with him and I hate no-showing.  I told him I needed to run slow, which also meant short since I needed to get done for 8:00am soccer games.  800mg of ibuprophen seemed to do the trick, felt OK but could definately feel it the entire run.  Kept it pretty slow, I could tell Ryan wanted to go faster but I kept holding him back.  Hey, he told me slow was probably a good thing for him too.

Glad I got a longish run in, I feel bad that I still haven't run over 20 miles this year and really think this is going to be bad come marathon day.

Here is my crazy work schedule for the next 2 months.

Monday, Bejing China for 2 weeks, come home for 1 night, fly to San Francisco for 4 days, home for 5 days then off to Rio Brazil for 1 week, come home for 1 week then Istanbul Turkey for 2 weeks, then 3 at home until UVM.  Schedule subject to change but that's what it's looking like now.  Pretty hard to train like that, but pretty neat to run in 4 different continents over the next 2 months.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace
1	7:47	7:47
2	15:26	7:39
3	23:16	7:40
4	30:38	7:22
5	37:54	7:16
6	44:56	7:02
7	52:17	7:21
8	59:49	7:32
9	1:07:12	7:23
10	1:14:53	7:41
11	1:22:14	7:21
12	1:29:26	7:12
13	1:37:18	7:42
14	1:44:44	7:26
15	1:52:10	7:26
15.2	1:53:06	7:13
Total	1:53:27	7:27