First "Run"

Yesterday I ran for over 3 miles non-stop. Haven't done that since June 14th (9 weeks ago).

Two goals...
1) To see if my achilles holds up during and after the run.
2) To get some rough measure of my fitness compared to the end of May.

First, the run. It was an easy 8:30 pace 1/2 mile up to the high school track, followed by 2 miles at 8:00 pace, then 1/2 mile at 8:30ish back home. Overall 3.09 miles at an average pace of 8:12. Weather was pretty warm, about 80 degrees and it's all in the sun.

Goal 1. Achilles felt perfect for about 15 minutes, but started to ache a little around mile 2. Slowed down a little and it went away, so no problems there. Iced when I got home and didn't have any issues that evening. Slept last night with my ankle brace/night splint (I'll explain that one in a post soon) and this morning it feels OK. I'll find out for real once I get moving about.

Goal 2. The run felt easy, which is good since 8:15 is supposed to be my easy pace. Average HR was 150. Average heartrate/average speed was 20.5. Looking back at a few 5 milers from the end of May that I ran about that pace shows that the HR was more like 145 back then, with a HR/speed of 19.2-20.2. So I'm off a little, but not much - it's hard to compare directly on just one short run.

My next run will be Saturday, when I'm planning to do 4 miles at 8:15 pace. Before then I still have a couple of days in the pool.

Next week I officially exit my "pool running phase" and enter my "fitness rebuilding phase". Unfortunately, that doesn't mean zero pool running, it just means that there will be more real running than pool running. The goal is to gradually build up the mileage over the next 13 weeks (thru mid November) to hopefully get back to where I was at the end of May.