What ever it takes!

12 mile progressive run in 1:18:10  6:30 avg pace.

Then I noticed some super fast pregnant women and went and ran 3.3 miles with her.  She was running at a 6:30 pace, craziness.

15 miles in 1:45:00, 7:00 avg pace

On my way to Prague today so I'm not sure how my running is going to turn out the next week and a half.  I'm taking warm running clothes cause I'm really hoping to find some cool running routes, but I'm also taking clothes in case I'm stuck on a hotel treadmill the whole time.  I don't have a big enough suitecase.

Pretty pathetic excuse for a workout but I wanted to just go get moving to keep from going to sleep and hopefully get over Jetlag as soon as possible.  Very long flight, hit the hotel gym as soon as I checked into my room, managed 3 miles and then just couldn't do it anymore, I then went to the elliptical trainer, couldn't figure out what was wrong with it then I figured out they had installed the handles backwards so they felt all weird, so I gave up on that too.  I think I can manage to stay awake for another 4 hours now.

On the drive it we drove past a river that looks like it has a nice bike path next to it for a ways, tomorrow hopefully I can get out and explore a bit.  It's really wet here, I asked if it is always raining and they told me no, usually its snow.

After walking around to find dinner last night I learned 2 things about Prague, 

1- it is the coolest city I think I've ever been to, pretty much exactly what you would expect from an old Gothic European city.  I never really gave much thought to Prague and never really thought of visiting but it really is an amazing place, and being here right before Christmas is really neat too.   

2- it would be very easy to get lost here.  The problem with wanting to go for a 10 mile run in a new city is 5 -6 miles away from the hotel can get you extremely lost, especially when you've never seen the place in the light.

So I chickened out and went to the hotel gym this morning,  Actually got a very good night sleep last night, only woke up once and then I slept in past my alarm.  It felt really good to get a good run in this morning.

16 km (10 Miles) in 1:14:40  ~7:30 avg pace

I haven't mentioned it before cause I was trying to pretend it wasn't real but after my little 140 mpw, ending with a treadmill marathon stunt my right shin has been causing me grief.  I've just been running through it and eventually it goes away after about 10 minutes but this morning I decided it was to much and I succumbed to the pain and did the Arc Trainer at the hotel gym instead.

45 minutes on the Arc with backwards handles followed by 20 minutes of weights and stretching.  Hopefully I can get done with work early today and get an afternoon workout in.

Well, I finally did it.  Last night I studied a public transit map of Prague and saw that there were bike paths all along the river so I decided to go for it this morning and try running outside.  Started from the hotel and went down the cobble stone streets of Old Prague "the touristy part" and out across some famous bridge that I don't know the name of.  I couldn't find any signs of a bike path and once I got to the bridge as tradition would have it some drunk guy in a suit decided to run after me.  It seems to be an international tradition, every where I go some drunk guy tries to run with me. (Oh, except in Paris it was 2 drunk women in high heels, quite impressive).  I take comfort in knowing I can out run 99% of everyone out there and probably 100% of everyone stumbling out of a bar at 5:00am.   Anyway, I ran through a bunch of narrow cobble stone streets trying to stay close to the river and eventually found the bike path,  it was a great path and seemed to go on forever, problem was it was dark, I had no idea where I was headed and frankly it got kind of spooky so I decided to turn around and head back to civilization.  I ran aimlessly around the streets of Prague for a while and decided I wasn't having much fun so I headed back to the hotel.

I would love to go follow that river trail in day light further, I'm pretty happy with my run and was actually surprised I went 7 miles.  Leg felt OK the whole time but due to being lost most of the way I never really pushed the pace.  I'll try and get a little more in after work today.