Good Thing I am a Klutz

I’ve been kind of klutzy my whole life.    I always blamed it the lack of peripheral vision that goes along with wearing eyeglasses.     I had  lasik surgery 4 years ago, and well, um, I’m still a klutz!   However, I do think all those years of tripping has given me a knack for falling in such as way as to minimize injury.   That’s a good thing, right?

For example, today, I took a face plant half way through my long run.    Get this – my left quad took the brunt of the fall.   I got a little road rash on my thigh, a bruised knee which is superficial – the bones and joints do not hurt at all.  Just soft tissue damage, thank goodness, as that heals real fast!

Here’s a picture I took of the damage.  I photoshopped it just like they do on CSI to make the bruising on dead bodies look worse.  I wish I had a job doing that.

I ran 15 miles today as three laps of a 5 mile very hilly loop around my house.   I felt great on the first loop.  “Fast, Fluid, Free” was my mantra.    I felt great for the second loop too, until I tripped and did the face plant.    When that I happened, I stood up, visually assessed the damage, and then jogged easy for a minute to make sure everything felt good.    Felt a little sore, but good, so I picked it back up again.   I had a hard time finding that “fast fluid free” feeling the rest of the second loop.   The third lap was just plain painful.  It was all I could do to merely struggle and keep good cadence and good posture.  I took my first ever ice bath afterwards because I was so SORE!    (sorry, no pictures of THAT!)

Splits for today’s workout:

• lap 1: 10:19 min/mile, 142 avg hr
• lap 2: 10:37 min/mile, 141 avg hr
• lap 3: 10:51 min/mile, 146 avg hr

This run was not fun like yesterday’s bike ride.  It was more line with the Bubble of Pain.  It got me thinking why should my long runs be so hard, yet my long bikes are fun.   Should I be working harder on my long bikes?   I can’t bear that thought, tho!    Maybe this is right, because in Ironman, the run will be a difficult struggle. I am expecting that.

I named this five mile loop run course “Attacking the Hills”.  It hits two very steep hills in my neighborhood with each lap.    Hills as bad as the worst hill at Bandits, if you know what that is like.    I think this route is easier than Duke 1/2.   Of course, I am wise enough to know that no matter how I train, the Duke 1/2 run will feel very hard.  Very hard indeed.

Here’s the elevation profile of Duke 1/2 run course (shown in red) as compared to my “Attacking the Hills” route (shown in green).