Running to recover

Just a short post to tell you that I'm fine (if you care... ;-) although still recovering after last week's painful episode at Rio Del Lago. It took me three days to regain my pre-race weight, something I never experienced before. And I've been unusually tired all week. Granted, I didn't take much rest with a lot of work, long working days, including three starting at 5:30 am on the phone. My legs were still sore on Wednesday and I decided to go for a run on Thursday for 6 easy miles. On Friday, I ran 9 miles with the last 4 under 6:30 min/mile pace. It felt good to feel some speed again after all the slow miles of these past weeks.

On Saturday, I attended our Stevens Creek Striders Saturday morning meeting at the Stevens Creek Park and ran the REI Trail with the group before continuing on Stevens Creek Canyon Road and Trail and climbing up to Black Mountain on the Bellavista Trail, then down on Montebello Road. 28.6 miles and 4,000 feet cumulative elevation.

And, this Sunday, I went back up to Black Mountain on Montebello Road, even racing with cyclists on the way up, which provided great motivation to work harder. I refilled my bottles at the camp ground (yes, I know, it says "Non potable water...") and made the detour on Waterwheel Trail on the way back. Total 24.7 miles and 3,800 cumulative elevation.

Now, while I'm so glad to get back to training again, especially in this wonderful weather, and happy to have logged more than 68 miles in 4 days, all these miles didn't come easy. I know that, by saying this, you will wonder why I'm doing this as a hobby then. My first answer is that, training hard will provide satisfactions down the road. And I'll use the famous "no pain, no gain" as my second answer...

Anyway, the Rio Del Lago 100 results have finally been published on Thursday. 38 finishers out of 84 starters (45% finisher rate). Of these, 15 finished between 30 and 32 hours. Tough one...

This weekend, Dan Decker and Greg Lanctot, from our QuickSilver Ultra Running Team ran Pine to Palm 100 in 25 hours flat and 27:13 respectively. Next week, Gary Gellin will participate in his first hundred at the Bear. Busy September for the team!

Next week too, Adam Blum directs the Quicksilver Trail Half Marathon and 10K in San Jose. It is still time to enter or volunteer! Quicksilver Almaden County Park, Hacienda Entrance, Sunday September 25, 2011, 8:30 AM.

This was post #249, talk to you next week for the 250 milestone! Have a great week in the meantime!