90K almost there....

I'm almost back there. This past week, I ran 90K. 10K every day from Monday to Friday. A 20K run on Saturday and a 17K run on Sunday. Starting in September, 70 weeks were a regular diet, but the legs are getting stronger, the Achilles tendon isn't hurting any more and finally broke 80K sometime in mid-November with two good 15K runs on Saturday and Sunday one weekend.

For the past few months, since mid-September, I haven't run on two days. It's been a diet of 10K's every morning at 5:30am. I've now pushed that time back. I'm getting up at 5:00am, out of the door by 5:30am so that I can be back in the house in time to get ready for work. The 5:00am wake-up time has forced me to crash by 10:00pm at night. Those midnight and 1:00am sleep times are gone. Except, for the weekends. I can afford to head out at 8:00am.

I've discovered that it's all about tea! That's right. A cup of black tea, no milk, cooled with some water and no hydration is really required for about an hour. In fact, the 20K run was done without additional hydration during the run. The tea is a miracle drink. I believe it's raising my lactic threshold, keeping the muscles from tightening up early and allowing me to go longer. The colder weather in the fall is also helping so I'm not burning up, sweating to keep cool. The sweat is just exertion.

So as I write this, it's past midnight. I did a 20K run today, Saturday (Dec 4) and tomorrow, hoping that I'm out of the door by 10:00am, I'll run a nice slow 17K. That's a good week. I don't know when I'll be able to do those two back-to-back 20K's and crack the 90K mark.

I'm also doing a very good stretch after the run. Especially the calf muscles. Stretch and limber them up. Also stretching those abductor muscles on the upper inner leg. The hamstrings are getting stretched at the same time. Some time back I got a painful sciatica nerve problem. I suspect this was from sitting at the job. At that time, I did some ultrasound physiotherapy which helped get rid of the problem at that time, but there's not much stretching that can be done back there. Just have to watch out to make sure the nerves aren't compressed too much for too long. Sitting down for more than 30 minutes is probably a bad thing.

The routine for the rest of the week will be similar. 10K's daily and finish off with two 17's. I might try for another 20K before taking off for Nairobi. Don't know if I'll get to run much at home, but I might switch up to cycling to keep the toning.