Recovery Running in the Dark

Today, I went in for a sports massage, my usual tuneup that I go in for once the mileage starts building up. Ron didn't find any terrible trouble in my legs, but there were certainly a few spots that were sore when he started digging in to do his work. While I was there, he also showed me a couple of new exercises for ab work (he's also a personal trainer).

And, also since I was near RunTex, I stopped in to get some shoe fitting advice from Gilbert. I need to get a second pair of shoes to rotate in now that I'm down to one pair of shoes still in the safe mileage zone. He suggested I try a different brand of shoe, so I settled on a pair of Fila Providence zapatas. Those are Fila's cushioned shoe, much like the Mizuno Creations that I've worn for 5 years. Comfy, and $20 cheaper than the Mizunos, too.

In the afternoon, I did some cross-training by edging the yard, which was harder than it needed to be just because I haven't been as diligent with that yardwork task lately, and I also decided it was time to trim up the ivy/ground cover in the corner bed, too. Fairly tough to do in the high afternoon heat.

Then, at 8:00 tonight, I went out to test out the Filas on a recovery run. It was fairly uneventful, cruising up and around the 'Hood, but I couldn't run in the nature preserve since it was dark. Ended up with 5.8 miles at 9:20 pace, pretty restrained running. I would have stopped a little earlier, but "Bridge Over Troubled Water" came on the iPod about when I was finishing up, and I decided to listen to it again, so I just pushed "repeat," and kept on running for a little while longer. HR was a little higher, but it was significantly hotter than last Thursday's recovery run of equivalent length, so that was most of it. I didn't feel distressed at all during the run, so the HR was just showing me that conditions were a little tougher than last time.

Tomorrow is a trip to the gym. It's been a good week, but I'm really looking forward to something like a cold front to come into our part of the state. This warm weather needs to go!