The new recruits

Here they are. It was a bit tricky taking the picture, since the label for the red is a bright copper, and the camera insisted on brightening up the white. I had to play with the settings a bit. They are an Italian Primitivo and an Italian Piazza. They are both yummy right out of the carboy, so I anticipate they will be superb in a year. This is why I like to have lots of wine on hand, to let things sit and gradually age to perfection. Technically, I could have bottled these a month ago, but I'm glad I waited.

We had a book club meeting for lunchtime so I was up early to run. I've been at 90 minutes for my long slow run of the week for a few weeks now. I want to get comfortable with my new, quicker stride for that time before I push it longer. I'm still feeling the effects of that hard run earlier in the week, so I did a really good warm up of stretching and walking up to the berm.

My knee has been just the littlest bit cranky about the whole thing, so I've babied it a bit this week. But that's a measure of how much stronger it is, that running as fast as I possibly can didn't bother it too much. I think I was trying to stretch out my stride too much, and was running on my heels a little bit. Since biking annoyed my knees before, I figure that not biking will help them recover.

From there I ran around Woodbine. It's a little over 8K, and it took almost exactly an hour, nice and easy, in control of my breathing, and running so as to let my heart rate drop after the hills. It was pretty clear I wasn't up to another lap so I ran through the neighbourhood to get to 90 minutes. About 11.5 K altogether. It started off warm, and was getting into hot by the time I was done.

It took a long time to get comfortable, and there was some really clunky running from about 50 minutes to 1:05, and from about 80 minutes to the end was all about not tripping over my feet. Part of the problem is that running to keep my heart rate down feels really slow, and it's hard when you're trying to keep the cadence up. Of course, when I was counting I was running better, up around 88 to 90 steps per minute, but I suspect I was a bit slower some of the time.

I've been thinking of checking one of those cadence timers, where you set a cadence, and it ticks in your ear to help you keep in time. Has anyone used one of those? Any feedback about it?

Weekly Summary
Run 2.75 hrs
No bike or swim.