Trying To Keep The Fire Stoked

Pretty good run on Saturday, although I'm still not 100% recovered from  the Chicago Marathon.  I'm not really sore anywhere, or dealing with any problems - just a little fatigued and my legs are still a little heavy during runs.  I would love to take a few weeks off from running, but the challenge is trying to maintain my conditioning for a couple of more weeks for the Richmond Marathon. I think I've got another good race in me in Virginia, but I need to keep working on hills, and give my legs the rest they need.  If I can do that, I should be fine.

Today's run was pretty decently paced with 13 of the 18 miles at 6:59/pace.  Plus, I ran a pretty tough course as the elevation below indicates.  In total, it was about 800 ft of elevation gain overall on an out & back near Lake Jacomo.

During the run I focused on maintaining the pace on the climbs, and good running form on the downhills.  I have a tendency to turn into a backward leaning heel-striker on downhills, which really beats up your legs after a while.  The flatter shoes I'm wearing won't support much heel-striking, and my lower quads seem to really get stiff from the pounding.

I really don't think there's any way I can PR again at Richmond.  It's not a tough course, but it's got more hills than Chicago - as does pretty much every marathon.  But I've spent the last two weeks focusing on inclines and have also mixed them into my long runs.  The balance is still being in marathon recovery mode, but shifting my mind and my body to training for another marathon in just a few short weeks.  Scheduling them so close together probably wasn't the best plan of attack, but anyway ... here we are!

Saturday's elevation, a few hills by Lake Jacomo trying to prep for the Richmond Marathon in a few weeks

Even though my time is bound to be slower in Richmond, y'all know I'll try to run it hard.  The cool thing is there's no pressure on this race at all.  I've already had an AWESOME year of running with 6 different PR's!  So even if I don't run well, it's no big deal.  But who knows, maybe my best race of 2013 has yet to be ran.
... be great today!