C-2A Greyhound of the VRC-40 Rawhides
Shout out to the men and women from my old Navy squadron, VRC-40. If I possessed one ounce of internet savvy you’d be hearing the theme song right about now, but I don’t so you won’t. I do feel like I am rolling right along right now though (segue?) – a great weekend in the books to cap what turned out to be a big week.
This was probably my highest mileage (about 50) week since maybe mid-July. Felt fine the day after the workout on the track Friday morning, decided to change things up a bit Saturday afternoon and hit a trail instead of the usual local roads. Drove out to Stony Creek Park, which is a crushed stone trail that runs forever through a great wooded public gameland. Don’t think the multitudes of guys dressed in orange stalking black bear were super pleased to be sharing the great outdoors with me, but the weather was perfect (50 degs) and fortunately nobody (in shorts) got clipped. Can’t say the same about Smokey’s son, who unless he decided to tie his feet to a long pole and take a nap in the back of a Ford F-150 didn’t have a very good day. I did though – got in a total of 65 minutes, called it 10 miles. Felt loose and strong the entire time, didn’t try to push it but didn’t try to baby it either – I am not a big “runners high” kind of person, but can honestly say it was a pretty enjoyable afternoon instead of a workman-like effort. Along with the 2 runs in Vancouver, 9/9/10 in a week for me is about as big as it gets – don’t plan on making a habit of this many weekly miles but the opportunity presented itself and fortunately I felt good during and after all of them.
That being said, even though today was a meteorological repeat of yesterday, I opted to get in the pool and give the legs a little bit of a break. I am in this for the long haul, so hopefully throwing the body a proverbial bone every now and then will pay dividends down the road. Decided that getting in the pool didn’t mean taking the day off, so used the time for my standard aqua-tempo run. 20 minute warmup, 30 minutes hard, 15 minutes cooldown – another 65 minute effort. Figuring that would be about 10 miles on land, using the formula that Alberto Salazar uses with his underwater treadmill runners (3 in the pool = 2 on the land) I’m counting it as 7. Cooled down with drills, then used the massage hose to hopefully break up any soreness before it sets in.
I definitely feel like I am on the beginning of a good streak – even saw sub-160 on the scale Saturday night which is another “first in a while”. This week may be a little disjointed due to the weather and work schedule, but I feel like I am at the stage where taking a day off won’t feel right. So, we’ll “Keep them dogies rollin’, rawhide. Through rain and wind and weather, hell bent for leather……” 
