PRs in my 40s???

7:37 pace, beautiful run through bowmar at sunset. snow packed roads, 30 degree temps and sunset over the mountains..what more do I need? A looser back! This is getting back and I am scared what other things might appear if I dont take care of it!

7:42 pace...yucky run. Legs were tired and just felt blah.

7:27 pace..set off to run in my favorite neighborhood to run in near my house (bowmar) only to find that the road that i take to get there is not only closed to cars but to pedestrians too..and for 2-3 months according to the guy I talked to! Ugh..I am so bummed. My options are so limited from my house and with my time restraints...gonna have to figure something else out! Felt much better today.

7:33 pace...yuuuucky run again! no rhyme or reason for it either...just could not move! did some hip exercises after my run. i really need to do these exercises at least once a day...it takes no time at all and god knows i need help in that area! hoping it will help with lower back soreness/tightness...

great run through Waterton Canyon...is only open for another few weeks and I really hope to get out there each weekend until then..lovely place to run! Ran with my sister for the first 3.5 (8:24 pace)...picked it up gradually after that and finished in overall 7:33 pace..it is out and back course and the way back is all gradual down hill. felt great but was definetly tired towards the end.

7:35 pace...snowed all day yday and night last night so footing was not that great. i did manage to find a side walk that is plowed though..that made me happy! it was beautiful out there..even with the crazy cold temps the sun here in denver did the work of 10 suns back east :) felt good!

7:36 pace...felt ok, not great. every hill i encountered affected me...a couple of them, even though they were tiny, actually brought major fatigue to my legs. i recovered each time pretty quickly but why oh why are these tiny hills doing this to me?? another chilly day out there but the sun was shining lke mad and the snow was pretty well packed which made for decent footing.

waterton canyon with heather..7:12 pace. felt good but i am soooo not used to holding a conversation while running at a quicker pace! that was challenging! left hip is when i first get up from sitting...then it goes away a bit...overall tightness and soreness in the whole hiplower back really! oh how fun it is to get old! :)

nice and easy...7:50 pace....with strides afterwards. hip was sore at beginning but eased into it. slight twitch in my left hamstring near my butt during one of the strides...good god, what is going on!

was supposed to race today but the hip pain/lower back tightness/butt pain has me worried so i decided it might not be a good idea...hopefully i can try tomorrow!

Wasn't sure what I would be able to do today..but I got through 7.0. Ave pace 7:35. Ran on the High Line Canal trail which was not so enjoyable b/c it was still quite covered with snow. Usually I dont mind this but with these aches and pains I was not lovin it. The hip was painful the first few steps but by 30 seconds in to the run it was just kind of there, barely noticeable but not gone. This is exactly what I experienced back in 2001 when I was training for NYC...I trained through it for a good month but I was also getting treatment (ultrasounds) for it. It would always hurt at the beginning of my run and then pretty much go away after a bit. Getting up from sitting and just general walking were definetly more painful and this is what I am feeling now. The wierd part was come race day I did not feel it once and never felt it again...dont even ask! Well, I will watch it but hope that it will magically go away again! The butt/hamstring issues were fine.

7:28 pace...felt good. Hip pain was there but not bad at all. I did feel the butt/hamstring towards the end though. Sitting on ice pack as I speak!

7:35 pace...felt pretty yucky at the beginning but then i got into it. i miss running in bowmar so much..i wish they would finish this *#!@ construction! hip was 'ok', hamstring/butt was 'ok'....both are definetly there. i think i have figured out that the 'hip' thing is something with my iliac crest. i cant remember if that is what they said it was years ago or not. did not ice after the run as i returned to a bit of a crisis at work. not good (the icing, not the crisis..priorities, priorities :) )

decided that if my iliac crest is hurting when i sneeze then maybe i need a day off! ugh, iced a few times today which was good.

yippee..found a new way to bowmar. might be a little illegal but who cares. is is through a golf course and the turf feels so fabulous under my feet! still takes me an extra .5 to get there but that is better then the alternative places to run from home which i just don't love. felt pretty good today 7:32 pace and the route had some good hills in it. hip was not too bad at all. iced it before the run and will ice again now...

whoa..this is a lot more distance for the week then i have done for a long time. yay.

went to waterton with karen and her athlete matt. was a nice easy pace on the way out. i did not get into any rythym until like mile 4 but after that i felt pretty good. picked up the pace on the way back, started to feel the fatigue in the last few miles as my body started to ask when the run was going ot be over. was so great to run with these guys! a beautiful way to spend a saturday morning! now saturday afternoon (and sunday!) was another story..i was wiped out! i think i better stick with 12.0 for a few more weeks until i can recover a bit better.

hip felt really good. iced it afterwards. tweaked my ankle a bit in the last few miles of the run though..i am thinking i was tired and just not able to keep any decent form? hoping it does not hurt on today's run.

yay..ankle is fine. hip was super minimal. there, now i am not going to talk about aches and pains anymore! well, maybe i will just list them at the end of each post..coz i do have to keep track of when they start and all...dont i? but i feel like it is all i am wrting about these days! sheesh!

felt pretty good today..7:26 pace.

ran over to this area near my house that has some hills..nothing major but enough to work me a bit. i am just feeling weak on the hills these days and have decided i need to get more in. so i did a couple laps of this one loops that has a good 2 minute hill in it. and then i did this other hill that was more like 4 mins...felt pretty good...7:36 pace

have decided to call this route over to harriman lake the 'doggie route'. there is one part of the run where i can run on a dirt walkway that lines up next to some homes..a nice long 600 meterish stretch. nice, except for the dogs that live along this stretch. not one, but two dogs jumped the fence at me today. one of them has done it before and i know his deal by now..he waits till i have run past and am like 50 meters away and then he jumps and pretends to run after me. that one i can handle. it was the other one today that freaked me out..but he turned out to be harmless. he just had too much of the pitbull look to him and i freaked.

7:30 pace..felt fine.

whoa...shorts and tee shirt...60+ degrees...and i felt it! may have well been 90 degrees the way i was feeling..where is my winter training that i love so :) just took it easy..had no choice really as i think each leg was weighing in at 50 pounds! 7:43 pace

easy run with my sister....8:16 pace. shorts and tee shirt again! my sister used to be sooo fast! we were wondering today what happened to her...no weight gain, still exercises fairly consistently...she just cant move like she used to! it is wierd...it is like her body is just stuck in a certain gear. she is fine with it after many years of competing..me, i want a training partner out of her :)

and this course will be called the 'cute boy course'. did a progression run with karen on the high line canal trail. i had never run this part of the trail and i cannot wait to go back. beautiful winding trail that runs through the mansions of cherry hills. lots of other runners/cyclists/dogs to watch and just a very pleasant place to run. why can't i have that near my house? oh, right, b/c i make at least 500k less a year then most of them..what discrimination :)

so we started off nice and easy for the first mile, did some light stretching and drilll like stuff...which i should do more of! oh, right and the infamous potty stop! and then we were off..my garmin showed a bit different times then karen's..i like her times better. i have 7:57,7:37, 7:37, 7:29, 7:10, 7:03. We were supposed to bring it down 10 seconds each mile but that did not work so well. i am not so well disciplined in this i guess. and the cute boy that we saw part way through did not help during the 4th mile nor did he help when he came up from behind us during what was supposed to be our 1.0 warm down. i swear it wasn't him that made me push the warm down karen...i just need to practice running slow!

was a great run and am so glad that karen suggested the progression run. i am lucky to have her as a training partner :)

7:39 pace...whoa..slight change in weather today!!! i guess it was sub 20 and snowing when i ran. roads were definetly very slippery and had a thin layer of snow covering the ice. between the cold air that had my legs somewhat numb and the slipperiness i was fighting to get good traction and can definetly feel it in the hips and hamstring now. but the run was great..i just love love love running in the cold. but i think the high of 1 degree tomorrow might be a bit much..i'm due for a day off anyways..