Shakeout run after the 50K

I am quite surprised with how I have been recovering from my long runs recently.  I'm not sure if that means I haven't been pushing hard enough during the races or it is a sign of some good fitness.  But in any case I bounced back quickly after the 50K on Saturday and was ready to run by Monday.  I decided it was better to not tempt fate and held off a few more days.

Yesterday I did some short sprints with my youngest daughter while we were both watching her brother playing soccer.  As goalie on an undefeated high school team he has not seen a lot of action.  So as spectators - his cheering section - we are often not paying attention to the games.  Yesterday we did a few quick sprints along the side line and it was enough for me to feel like I was ready to get out and run again.

So, this morning I hit the nearby Santa Fe Trail and set out - not really sure how far I wanted to go, or how fast.  I went North from Baptist Road which has a very slight uphill direction and settled into a comfortable 8:30 avg.  It felt good and easy, no issues with the system and I kept on going.  Good thing I took some fluids cause I went all the way to Palmer Lake - just over 6 miles.

I decided to keep going to make it a measurable run and ran past the lake a little more till total distance was 6.55 miles - halfway point of a half marathon.  I had maintained the 8:30 pace all the way comfortably and turned around and headed back.

I was feeling peppy and decided to pick up the pace to see if I could roll a decent time for the half marathon distance.  So I settled in to a 7:30 pace and was able to maintain it all the way back to finish with an overall 8 min mile average and a sub 1:45 finish time.  Felt good to be on a solid trail and nice to get a good shake out run in along with a nice distance.

I don't have any more race plans for the year - so I'll run when I feel like it, probably do somewhere between 0 and 30 miles a week for a few months.  Surgery for the gall bladder is next week so it will be nice to get that out of the way - to both help me feel better, eat more variety and after recovery from it - to get out and have some fun runs.