Quite a bit has gone on since the cross country race. I was pretty happy with the way my race turned out, particularly the strategy of going slow and having a strong finish. But the next day I had major quad soreness. I could barely walk, let alone run. I ended up taking three days off from running. It really took the wind out of my sails as far as the race went.

But then I felt pretty good towards the end of the week, and I figured I woud go ahead with a long run on Sunday. J was running a 30k in a little town near our house. They also had a half marathon, so I went ahead and signed up for it, and got to run on closed country roads, lined by vineyards, with plenty of water stations. Probably running 13 miles wasn't exactly in the plan, but I felt pretty good. I started out running 9 minute miles, then gradually picked it up and ran quite a few miles in the 8:30 range. I had difficulty keeping the pace there the last two miles. There were quite a few women ahead of me who were dying and it was hard not to want to pick them off, even though it was a meaningless thing to do. I ended up running 1:52.

I got up early and did an easy easy 20 minutes and some drills. I gotta get back with it tomorrow as I would like to start building mileage.