The plan today was 1 mile warm-up, 6.5 mile tempo on the dirt roads, and one mile cool down. It didn't happen. On the one mile warm-up my calves were tight and would not let up. I started into the tempo and realized that the roads were muddy and a bit slippery--which was making my calves hurt worse, so after running half the tempo on dirt and mud, I turned onto asphalt instead of doing a 180 and running back. I ran an altered route which cut out .5 mile but got me out of the mud for a couple of miles. My calves stayed tight the whole time and it was really hard to maintain pace, but I made myself keep trying to run hard. 6 mile tempo was in 47:48/7:58 pace. I was wanting to stay under 8:00 pace for the tempo so I barely made it! One mile cool down and inside for some major stretching! The weather today was unbelievable--in the FIFTIES! I wore a running skirt and short-sleeve t-shirt and got HOT! Only in Kansas can the weather be below 0 and several days later be 60 degrees higher.... p.m. My sweet little Ian's 7th birthday was today, so we took down the Christmas decorations, put up the speedracer stuff, blew up balloons, and had a birthday party! We do this every year the day after Christmas! I had cake and ice cream like a trooper, felt horribly bloated, and decided to run a couple miles. Brandon ran the first one with me. I let him run at his pace which was a pretty good clip, pretty close to my tempo pace with a 200 meter or so sprint at the end, then he went in the house and I ran another one nice and slow. I feel better now.
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