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On Saturday morning I went for a run with Jon Laman on the Appalachian Trail. I knew a bunch of people that liked running on it, but the only “real” (i.e. not rails-to-trails) trail running I ever did was a 4 mile section of the Blues Cruise 50k where I ran with Jon as he was finishing. Jon mentioned we should pick up some orange vests since a lot of hunters were in the woods, which was a great idea. We hit a sporting goods store (the vests were only about $5 each and very light weight). We then drove to a parking lot near the Appalachian Trail Conservatory office in Boiling Springs and picked up the trail from there. The first 1/2 mile or so was pretty easy with a wide trail area on fairly level grass. We then headed into the woods and the trail became a little bit more difficult, I had to watch my step to make sure I stayed clear of the occasional roots, fallen branches, and rocks. After another mile or so it started getting much more difficult. There were some sections that were extremely rocky and I felt like I was in an agility test where a non-passing grade meant you twisted your ankle or took a spill. I was spending most of my mental energy looking about 2-10 feet ahead of me trying to figure out where to place my feet. After a little while the trail started getting a bit easier and included some sections that were in relatively flat grass (we even ended up climbing a small set of stairs that went over a fence into a horse pasture which was kind of cool). I could feel my left ankle and some of the stabilizer muscles in my lower leg hurting pretty bad in certain positions. When we hit 5 miles on the GPS we took a break for a minute, downed some calories and headed back. The run back seemed easier since the terrain was now somewhat familiar. We ended up running the 10 or so miles (I’m sure the GPS measured a little short since we had so many small sharp turns) in an hour and 35 minutes for a 9:30 average pace. Those were definitely the hardest 9:30 miles I’ve ever ran, but it was really fun. I’m definitely going to try to add the occasional trail run into my training. I might also compete in the Geisinger Humdinger Trail Race in March.

On Sunday morning I woke up and walked around and was relieved that my ankles and legs felt fine.  I wasn’t sure how wiped out I would be from yesterday’s run, but my resting pulse wasn’t elevated so I decided I would take a shot at the suggested FIRST long run of 8 miles @ 7:25. Since the weather was pretty suspect today (good chance of freezing rain), I decided to head to LA Fitness and run the workout on the treadmill. I warmed up for about 5 minutes, made sure the footpod was working and then reset the treadmill. I didn’t feel particularly great during the warm up, so my plan was to bag the workout if I wasn’t feeling the running love after two miles. I started off at a 7:30 pace and within a few minutes was feeling fantastic. I ended up running the miles in approx: 7:30, 7:30, 7:24, 7:18, 7:12, 7:24, 7:06, 6:53 and hit 8 miles right around 58:20 (7:18 average pace) with an average HR of 162. While I started pushing it a bit towards the last mile, I felt like I still had plenty of energy in reserve. I hope I can feel this good when I’m actually in a race.

Podcast listened to during the workout: Rounders the Poker Show

Looking at the workout in Garmin Training Center, I saw that the footpod records your cadence which I didn’t notice before (the column is over far to the right and I had to scroll to see it). I think this is pretty handy for people who are working on increasing their stride rate.

Update: I just realized that since the maximum length of time you can set for a treadmill session at LA Fitness (and likely other health clubs) is 60 minutes.  This means that ~ 8 miles is the longest un-interrupted run I can do.  It takes about 30 seconds to quickly reset the treadmill when the time limit is reached and have a new workout starting.  Although it is kind of annoying to have a forced break in the middle, at least with the footpod I won’t have to remember all the stats from the first session.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 7:32 pm and is filed under running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.