View Workout (Joe Uhan)

Return to Log

RF: Whitetail trails + Hoffman Tempo with CA

December 20, 2015 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: nearly 40! Clear trails!

Comments:
Up at 8, breakfast, then left at 9, heading back to River Falls. My uncle made our family recipe of pancakes, but he didn't have butter... Had some substantial gut-rot...either from all the carbs, or the nasty vegetable oil spread! Either way, both CA and I were fueled only on a few pancakes and coffee, going into this run.

We needed a long run, and I needed some "race pace". So once we got to the house, we loosened up and hit the road for a tour of a couple of my favorite running areas.

Whitetail is a ridge (maybe 200' elevation) that has about 8 miles of zig-zag mountain bike trails cut into the hillside, in the woods. Great trails, but when we got there, they were muddy and half-frozen.

And muddy!

We were about 2K into the loop, on a muddy section atop the ridge, when CA slipped and fell. It didn't seem to be that hard of a fall, but she hit a small tree on her way down. Still on the ground, she started crying, and said something was wrong with her shoulder.

It was dislocated!

I felt it, and the ball had shifted, just about halfway out of the socket! I felt the front, then - almost without much thought at all - VERY gently applied traction on the humerus. Then, "BLOOP" (as CA likes to say), back in it went!

I immediately got her down on her back and did some PNF work to stimulate her rotator cuff muscles to stabilize the ball in the socket. Shockingly, it didn't hurt at all!

Then she got up, and she was fine! WOW. Scary stuff!

We kept running...albeit very slowly, with me leading. Some other parts of the trail were OK, but after a couple miles (and maybe halfway into the loop), it got really bad again, so we bailed, and ran down a Jeep road to the street.

From there, we ran south, back into town.

I knew I needed some tempo work. At first I thought about going to my campus 5K loop, but why pound pavement? So we went to Hoffman Park to run my classic 1.1-mile "Mound Park" loop. LOVE this loop: it's a mostly flat, all single (or wide double) track trail atop a 300' high butte. Back when I lived here, I'd run this 3-4 days a week, and do anywhere from 3-7 laps at a time! Love it!

We got up there was were relieved to find pretty good trail: wet and slick in spots, but not muddy. So after a lap together, I hit it off on my tempo, while CA ran back down to the bathrooms and to run elsewhere in the park.

I've run this 1710m (wheel-measured) loop SO many times that I have a good grasp on splits. Back in my "Grinder Days", a "par" lap would be like 7:25 (that'd be like 7-flat pace + the extra). Anything faster than that is pretty quick. Mid-8s is super easy.

Eased into it, with the idea of keeping it true threshold. Did a pretty good job:

6:57, 160
7:00, 166
7:02, 168
7:02, 169
7:00, 172
7:04, 172

The last couple were too high, but I felt really good and (seemingly) controlled.

Form Focus: my left foot's been bugging me - TIGHT and sore - so the big focus was on relaxed-but-strong feet, shoulder blades, and pushing straight behind.

Did basically a 42+ minute tempo, and felt great! CA jogged backwards for encouragement the last few laps, then we reconvened to jog SUPER easy after that: through downtown RF at sundown!

GOOD run. Like most of my long efforts this year, not super-long, but quality.

Found some old NB 890s to wear: they fit with my orthotics, but by run's end, BOTH feet were super-sore! Hmmm...

PM: Steve's Pizza with my mom and brothers, and otherwise hung out!