Saturday

Left hand is still pretty messed up, but I'm reapplying tape and Neosporin every few hours so I think its getting better.  Legs were definitely feeling it from yesterday's jump lunges.  It made the hills not so fun today.

Saturdays are my long group trail run day.  I joined a group called "South Carolina Runners of Trails and Ultra-Marathons" a couple years ago.  I never ran trails much before then, mainly sticking to the road or track surfaces.  But I think that since I've started doing all my long runs on trails, my legs, ankles, and feet are much stronger.

Met up with the guys at the usual 0650.  Stretched for a few minutes and then headed out with them at 0700.  Small group this morning.  Dean and Kyle in front (both on their second 9mi lap), then Hunter and Bradley (both younger and very fast), and me in the back.  There were a few other guys but they started a bit behind us.  We didn't see them again until the finish.  The 5 of us stuck together until a little over halfway.  There are 3 large hills on this route, the first is a series of switchbacks around the halfway point, then the other two are around the 2/3 point and are almost back-to-back.  Dean and Kyle tried to stay with us going up the switchbacks but couldn't hold it and we dropped them.  Hunter and Bradley were just chugging along chatting away while I tried to stick with them.  They were running slower than they normally do, probably as a result of the stupidly high humidity, so I was able to stick with them to the finish, even after we picked up the pace for the last couple miles.  Finishing time was average, a 1:13.  I'm usually in the 1:10 to 1:15 range depending on the weather and how my legs feel.  My PR was a couple months ago on a cool day with something around a 1:06.

After getting back to the house, eating breakfast and recovering, I did a bunch of sets of the two couplets:
10 ring dips + 10 body squats
10 fat grip pull ups + 10 body squats