Penasquitos Canyon Long Run

Mike gave me a new pair of shoes to try out.  That caught me off guard.  I stopped by the store after lunch to report in on the previous week and get my assignments for the coming week.  I talked about how my ankle seems to continue to plague me, and he went in the back and brought out a pair of Saucony's that a rep had left as testers.  They're the new ProGrid Guide version (4, I think?) that aren't even on the shelves yet.  It's a stability shoe for mild pronation, so I'll try them out on some shorter runs and see if it alleviates the ache in my ankle.  They're more clunky than what I'm used to; and noticeably heavier too.  I'd never pick them out for myself, but who can argue with free? 

I joined the San Diego Running group from Meetup.com today for an out-and-back on the Penasquitos Canyon trail.  The trail is 6 miles from trail head to trail head, but I added an extra 2 miles beyond the trail head to bring my run to 14 miles.  Took me just under 2 hours, which is 20 minutes shorter than I had planned to do.  But it was harder than the 16.8 miler last week.  Here's why I think why:
- I ran the day before instead of taking a rest day
- I didn't use walk breaks like I did last week
- I ran a quicker pace
- The course was tougher than Lake Miramar: hillier and trail conditions

I liked running with this group.  I'll probably join them again 2 weeks from now when they're doing 15 at Lake Miramar.

Speaking of yesterday, I wouldn't normally run the day before a long run.  But I didn't want to have just 3 days running for the week.  I wound up doing 5 miles, each with a different bent.  The first was a warm up in bare feet.  Then I ran a mile in goal 5K pace (6:30).  Then a recovery mile (8:30).  Then I did 8x striders for a total of a mile.  And finally a cool down mile.  It felt good, but I knew after I was done that it was tough enough to make a long run on the next day a challenge. 

Tomorrow's supposed to be a rest day, and I'll probably stick with that.  But I might succumb and do an easy, easy 3 just to keep the ankle limber.

I've started trying 5-10 minutes of an ice water soak for the ankle.  Mike says not to do it everyday because you can actually cause damage if you over ice.  But I admit, even though it gets excruciating after about 5 minutes, it has done wonders for the ankle.  I really notice a difference.  I iced up when I got home from the run, and I feel so much better tonight. 

Next week's running schedule:
Monday: 30 minutes easy, followed by 15 minutes of 2 mins at 5K pace + 1 minute recovery
Tuesday: No run
Wednesday: LSD run of anywhere from 1hr 45 mins to 2hrs 15 mins.
Thursday: No run
Friday: Easy paced 45 minutes
Saturday: No run
Sunday: Silver Strand Half Marathon