I'm back

Wow . . . . Sept 4th was my last blog. Today is Sept 24. Boy, am I ever red-faced over that!

I have been running during my MIA for the last three weeks. I have been trying to keep the mileage in the high teens and under 20. I had a week near 20 several weeks ago and my hips and knees hurt for a week so I decided to tune it down by a couple of miles. I know you'd think that a couple of miles would not make a difference but it does. This is just the painful exercise of "building base". The last three weeks have been a blur and I really don't recall all my runs or anything specific about them to brag on.

This past weekend, Susan and I ran on Saturday and Sunday. She picked the route on Saturday. It was a very hilly run in the neighborhood of 4 1/2 miles, give or take. I don't think that there was ever more than a 1/4 mile stretch where we running on flat land and though I didn't admit it to her, my legs took a pretty good pounding on the downhills. Running uphill is tough but not that bad on my legs. It's the downhill that kills me. I try all the tricks that I know to minimize the pounding . . . . keeping the knees bent and run in sort of a squatted position (this makes me look funnier than I already look), running with my body perpendicular to the slope (this forces me to pick up speed and will eventually lead to me achieving terminal velocity), tacking (zig zag) to reduce the angle of the hill (this leads to running hundreds of extra miles). Regardless of method, I still take a beating. Anyway, we survived the run and she took me out for an early Birthday dinner (Oct. 1) to a very nice restaurant.

Sunday after church, we did a recovery run of 3 miles in the light drizzle. I enjoyed running in the mist and cooler weather. It was a good run to make the legs recover from the hills on the previous day.

I am planning on running this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes.