400!

This marks my 400th post on this blog, which is a bit crazy since it means that I've been able to keep this "journal of sorts" for almost two years straight. It's been a great resource when I want to figure out why something hurts, if I am having trouble deciding on a route to run, or to compare my pace and heart rate type statistics from previous runs of similar distance. Luckily I have had too many of these types of reports...

This morning I woke up at about 5:30am to get my run done before heading off to work. It seems that I have come to prefer the longer morning run to the running to and from work thing that I've been doing for the longest time. It's not even the "glad to get it out of the way" thing, but rather the fact that I don't have to cope with carrying a backpack. The warmer weather causes the straps on any bag I try to chafe my skin and it's just not cool.

Anyway, this morning I was out by about 5:45am and running. I didn't have much of a plan on which route I would run, but I did have a firm distance goal and a very vague pace goal. All of my running is of the slow and steady variety, but that can mean anything from 5:00/km - 6:30/km pace (8:00/mile - 10:30/mile). I was hoping to stay closer to the lower end of the scale.

The early morning creaks and pains in my knees and ankles were not as bad as usual, and that is a welcome trend, so I started off at a decent warm up type trot. By the second kilometre I was well below 6:00/km pace for the split and my average was sliding down below that threshold as well. As I ran up, around, and then through Rosedale things were looking good, and then the 10k mark hit...

I'd been feeling a bit of something I'll just call tension in the lower abdomen for a bit here and there throughout the run, but at the 10k mark it felt like someone stuck a knife into my intestine and proceeded to twist it. It's likely how the Brazilian's felt today as a nation while watching that own goal go in against the Dutch...

I even considered walking, but in the end I am so glad that I didn't. Why? Because when I hit the desired 12km mark and stopped running I had a couple of hundred metres left to walk and it was more painful than running. At one point I was staggering along half bent over at the waist. It's a good thing it was still early or some of my neighbours might have wondered what the hell was wrong and come out to check up on me.

The worst part, now that the pain is over, is that I have no idea what caused it! I am racking my brain to think back on what I ate, what I drank, or whatever in the day or so leading up to this morning and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Very frustrating...

Anyway, that was how my first run of July went. It can only get better from here!