It's over, man. Let her go.

I went out late tonight and ran the 5k route that I'll run on June 11, and ran it twice.  I mapped it out on mapmyrun.com from the map they show on the race website, and it came out to 3.2 miles.  I ran it with the Garmin and sure enough, 3.2.  So, maybe they move the start or finish or maybe it's just a little longer "5k" but anyways, ran it the way they have it mapped out.  The first mile has a hill you go up and then down, then it's slightly downhill.  The second mile is basically all down hill, but from 2.0 - 3.2, it's all uphill.  So, it's a tough finish.  I ran the first time at a fairly leisurely pace and did it in about 27:00.  The second time, I ran it a little harder, racing my "ghost" on the Garmin and did it slightly faster.  It will be a fairly tough course to do under 25:00, I think.  I've got some time to work on my hills and my fast downhill running, so I may do OK.

Jogged a couple of miles with my daughter this evening then had time for a quick 1.1 at 7:30 pace before needing to get back home and finish getting dinner ready.

Quite the day at work!  I figured could either go to scouts tonight without running and take it out on the poor kids or leave work early to get in a good 60+ mins before I went.  I chose the latter.  I think my boys appreciated my running tonight.

Went to the track and the HS team was using it until 5:30 so I had 35 mins to kill.  I decided to kill myself and run some serious hills. I ran around the area, charging hard up every hill and did a little walking at the top or on the way down the other side when needed.  There's no shortage of hills in Pittsburgh.  I stepped out of my car at the track and that started the first uphill.  :-)  I found some incredibly steep hills to run.  One I found that was about .08 mi and rose 75'.  Is that right? That's like a 17% grade - it felt like it!  Not a long hill, but it was tough!  Anyways, I ran that thing twice, walking down after the first time.  Rattletrap's quote was in my head, and that was a pretty killer "corner" but I convinced myself there were plenty of other hills to run, why kill myself on just that steep one?  I'm pretty sure that the phrase "I used to walk to school in 10' of snow, uphill both ways" was coined in Pittsburgh.

Ran 4.12 mi in 41:29 (10:04) which isn't too bad for as much as I had to walk and the hills.  I was spent at this point.  Got back to the track and it was past 5:30 so I decided I needed to get in another couple of miles - easy on the track.  I also wanted to check to see how accurate the Garmin was once and for all.  I ran two laps in lane #1 and I was shocked by 1) how accurate the Garmin was (almost spot on!), and 2) how mean the track coach was when telling me I wasn't allowed to run in lanes 1 or 2.  I finished my mile in lane 4.  Didn't matter at that point since I have the Garmin and it told me when my mile was up.  Laying the laps over Google Maps shows that it wasn't exactly accurate in lanes on the track, but they're all on the track, just off.  The distance was accurate, and if I shifted the Google map just a hair, it would be almost perfect.  Very cool!  The roads are much more accurate, so I think it has something to do with the oval path...

Anyways, finished up another 1.2mi or so at a 8:20 pace and I was pretty well done and out of time.  I was glad to be done.  Now it's time to get to bed a little earlier tonight since I avoided my Midnight run!

I'll blog my run after I actually get my run in tonight, but I downloaded the SportTracks software and it's pretty sweet.  It gives the same picture as the connect.garmin.com software as far as the points on the map, but I wanted to post a picture of what the Garmin recorded for my 1/2mi Lane 1 track Garmin test and what looked like.  The little "blip" on the first corner is correct, I forgot I had to go around a walker.  If you shift the whole oval of what the Garmin recorded just a bit, it's fairly close to being on Lane 1.  Not perfect, but the fact that the 1/2 mi mark is just shy of the start is pretty darn impressive, IMO.  I'll blog more later, but here's the pic:

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Oh well, I tried to get google maps to zoom in on the stadium and track, but it's there near the marker, you'll just have to zoom in some to see it. Not that anyone probably really cares, but hey, it's my $$$ that's going to it, so I might as well be proud of it...even if I can't use it when I want to. :-)

I finally got out at 11:30pm tonight.  Didn't really feel like going since my legs were feeling pretty lead-ish.  But I went, hoping to do 10.  The first couple of miles felt great, but it started to go downhill from there.  I ran the river trail so I knew it would be flat.  I decided I'd turn around at 4.5 miles.  I averaged 9:25 or so if I remember right.  I was getting my dreaded foot pain about mile 4, so that's why I didn't stick out the rest of that 1/2 mile to make it 10.  I was just happy to get back without having to walk much.

I have my next round of injections in two weeks :-( next week, I think, so hopefully that will help more than the first round.  Haven't seen much improvement at all with a single dose of cortizone.  It's now 2am so I'm off to bed.  Nite all!

Had to sprint to my car from work when my umbrella got turned inside out in the 30mph gusts.  I was drenched.  Could have turned back and stood in the rain waiting for the bus and spending $2 to ride a mile to the car.  Or just run it.  Either way I was going to be drenched.  Might as well get a mile in (wasn't planning to run today) and save the $2.  Yeah, I'm cheap.

Just went on a 3 mile out and back without the Garmin.  Ran it in 31 mins out and 29 mins back.  That included two stops on the way out and one on the way back adjusting lacings as I was playing with different lacing to see if it would help some with the foot pain.  Not sure yet, but it may help...

Oh, my first 6 run week and I think my first 30+ mpw!