Cheesey bottom crust

Grapevine

Hell Hole

Grapevine

Parkway loop

Grapevine

Grapevine.

Hell hole. A nice Monday run for the first time in a while.

City Wells. Fun to get on the trails in the rain. Tried running some of the Brakens Loop trail. Fun but to torn up from horses to be able to enjoy. Ended up just running up the stream bed instead.

Parkway

Hell Hole/soccer park.

Parkway

Grapevine. Tied to go fast on the way back but only ended up with 7min pace. Frustrating.

Landfill.

Parkway.

Grapevine/Sienna Hills.

Landfill.

Grapevine.

Grapevine. The last week of running was pretty ruff. Today started out not feeling any better even with a two day rest. I noticed my shadown about 1/2 mile in to the run and my form was just horrid. I was almost shuffling. Not even picking up my legs at all but feeling like I was working way hard. So I tried to really focus on picking them up and I could really feel it in my quads. I think in the effort to put in more miles on tired legs the last several years I'vE developed really bad form and its really effected everything in my running. So the rest of the run my quads felt it but my pace was better than any run since I started back up and it felt almost effortless at several points. So the quads are a touch sore but I'm really excited to have something to try yo focus on and possibly get back to loving running again after over a year of really struggling with it.

Landfill

Parkway

Grapevine.

Landfill.

CC Trail.

Telegraph/East Hell Hole/Hell Hole. Ran with JD today. I dont think we have gone on a run together since he started XC 2 years ago. Fun to see him progressing and sad to find myself struggling to keep up.

Landfill

Grapevine.

Parkway/dirt to Green Springs.

Landfill

CC Trail. Tried to hit the whole run at a better pace. Not sure how that went but I felt a smidge better than I have the rest of the week during the run.

Landfill.

Highland Park. Beautiful weather for running.

Landfill

CC Trail. Freaking wind.

Landfill.

Firestation.

River Trail-power station.

Highland park

Grapevine.

Landfill.

Grapevine. 

Firestation.

Landfill. Felt almost good today. Tried to enjoy it as these runs seem to be so few and far between lately.

Grapevine

Havent had been running very well for the last 10 months. No energy in the body, legs constantly tired, gaining weight all kinds of stuff like that. Ran a unremarkable New York in November and had no plans or goals  after that. Wanted to rest and see if that helped so I took a few months off. Felt ok the first few weeks but then the same stuff came into play again. Doctors are no help so I just decided to try and gut it out and hope things would change. Even started lifting a little bit of weight to try and gain back some strength. So all this leads to a couple of days before the race feeling like I would enjoy racing even if I wasnt in great shape. So on a few weeks of very low mile training and having not run further than 9 miles in four months I signed up for the 30k. Glad I did. It was a LOT of work and I had to really keep focused but I was able to run a time I am happy with for this stage in the fight. The legs didnt want to give any speed after the first 6 miles but they never stopped working even though they were really shot. Maybe there is hope. 

Grapevine

Grapevine

Grapevine. Back at it after a massive planters flare up in the right heel. 

Landfill

Grapevine

Landfill

Prospector. Finally decided to try out the shoes I got a year ago from a race. Aside from the weird laceless design they work good. Lots more grip on the trail than the road shoes. Lots of people out enjoying the good weather but still was able to enjoy the trail. The legs felt the lack of training at about mile 6 but held together for the most part.

Parkway/dirt to greensprings.

Landfill

CC Trail

Icehouse. The heat did me in on this one. Ran out of water with 4 miles to go.

Cc trail.

Landfill. Felt so much worse than yesterday but had a faster overall pace than yesterday by 15 sec/mile. Go figure.