Full Moon at Afton

What a beautiful night for running! Earlier this week I had a half notion of heading back up to the SHT tonight for a final trot on the trail to get in some night running along the section I hope to do during the dark hours (Finland to...?) but in the end decided that logistically it would be a bit of a nightmare and that I should just stick with the original plan of an Afton run with Matt et al.

So that is what I did. And had a new running partner to share the fun - Val, whom I'd met at Voyageur, and I were emailing yesterday and I was telling her about the run so she decided to join also. Worked out good as by the time we were ready to run at 8pm Matt, Zach and Bill were just in from a loop (#2 for Matt) and were taking a break. So the pair of us set off on loop #1. I'd been hoping to run 2 full loops and the was feeling pretty good for most of the first one. We had the headlamps out after about 40 minutes - just as we were attacking a fairly technical downhill - and were covering ground at a decent pace. Val asked me a few times if we were going too slow for me - er, No - in fact we were probably running faster than I ever have out there on a training run! We met Zach and Bill along the river as they were heading the opposite direction. Matt had stomach issues and had gone back to the car. Too bad for him but he's gotten some good night runs in out there so I think he is well set for Sawtooth.

We ended up at 2:45 for the loop but I had started to feel a pretty sharp pain in the center of my right quad so wasn't too happy about that. Totally new pain. I love it - couldn't have a week go by without a new one! I recall Adam mentioning some quad pain so I will have to check in with him to see if it was anything similar. Feels good as I write this now but I expect there's a lot of build up in my quads from the week's biking and running. Good thing I'm having weekly massages at the moment...

Setting off on loop 2 just after 11pm we weren't sure if we'd do the full one but the great thing about running out there is being able to cut it short if needed. Actually, that is kind of a bad thing really as it's too easy to pack it in :) But it made sense last night as I turned on my right ankle along the Back 40 Loop and it hurt pretty bad. Many years ago I tore ligaments in this ankle (long before I started running... very high heels on a rather drunken college night out) so it has always been the weaker one and I often roll it once or twice during a race but usually nothing that I feel for very long. But I knew last night's turn was a little worse than usual and my quad pain was not going away so when we got back down to the river from the campground hill we turned right and took the path back up to the carpark. A little disappointed not to have completed the second loop but no point in pushing through pain now. There will be enough of that in a few weeks time! Wynn and Duke arrived back to the carpark just as we were packing up to go. They were planning a second loop also. Not bad after a solid night session on the SHT Thurs for Wynn - he's in great shape for the race.

So 26 for the night. Unlikely to make my goal of 70 for the week unless the ankle improves dramatically by tomorrow but it's not the end of the world. Lots of icing and elevation today. I did ice it for quite a while last night - did my usual 20 minutes in the ice bath when I got home and then had my feet and ankles in a basin of ice for another 10-15 mins. Felt good at the time so I am a little surprised by how sore it is now. Feel like I put in some good quality runs this week anyway. Wednesday night was a tempo one along the Luce Line - myself and Eric were definitely pushing it but that nice flat non-pavement surface is the place to do it. Then Thursday evening we did 20 around the lakes and Minnehaha parkway. It had been quite a while since I ran that length on the road but it felt good.

Looking forward to watching lots of the Olympics in the coming days. I got to see some of the swimming and gymnastics last week but definitely want to see more of the track & field events. I have DVR but have no clue how to use it so I should really try to figure that out...

end of post.