It's over, man. Let her go.

Goals this week:  5+ days running, 25+ miles with the long run 7+

Today is my son's 11th birthday!  To celebrate this monumental event, I went for a run after the BBQ, cake, and presents.  Ran at Riverview Park, which was either downhill or uphill.  Nothing flat.  It was a good workout and the last mile, which was all uphill, I'd run at a "slow sprint".  It wasn't all out, but was pretty close, for one or two light posts then I'd walk for a bit and then go again.  HR would get up there fairly high and I'd let it drop 5-7 BPM before starting again.  I hope I got some strength out of that workout!  AP was 8:55.

Wimped out a little today.  I had mapped out a 5+ mile route to run during lunch today but it was so hot and muggy it wasn't any fun.  Plus, after running over the Clemente bridge to PNC Park, and going down the steps to the river trail, I encountered a couple of people who told me I would need to go back up and around PNC Park since they were filming a commercial.  I said no problem and turned around.  I started back up the stairs and felt slighted.  I wanted to turn back around and ask them if a balding, sweaty runner in a mismatched outfit, complete with doorag (non-matching of course) isn't what they're looking for in their commercial.  Heck, I'd even take my shirt off and flex.  I'm guessing they don't want any "real" people and prefer the rail thin models, or maybe the truly fit, muscle bound, tanned dudes, since it was probably a Pirates commercial.

Speaking of the Pirates, did you see they won?  I was cleaning out the van and happened to turn on the radio and the game was on.  I listened for just the 2nd and 3rd innings, but the 2nd inning was exciting!!  We went up 6-0!  I was surprised as heck that they actually hung on to win 7-6.  Normally, they'd blow a lead like that.  That would have been a game to go to!

Rode the bike in to work today.  There's a running class every Wednesday until the end of the year, so I went to that.  We did a 20 min run after filling out a questionnaire about what we're looking to get out of the class.  It should be a good class.  There were only 5 "students" but that may grow as the weeks go on.  We did about 2.4mi in that 20 min, so that was a pretty good, fast pace for me right now.  I met a couple of other runners that I didn't know, which is always fun.  We came back, stretched for a few minutes and I went and ran another mile or so on the treadmill before heading back to work.  This should be a good class with very knowledgeable and experienced runners leading it.

Ran on the treadmill today during work.  The idea was to run with the Garmin and HR monitor on, running 5 or so miles.  Each .75 mi, increase from 9:00 then finish at 8:00 pace with a mile cool down.  I had hoped to track my HR for each mile and see what it was at each pace.  After about 1.25 mi, I realized the HR was showing 165 and there was no way my HR was that high.  Dang.  The treadmill is interfering with the monitor.

Instead, I shut down and restarted doing intervals for 25 mins.  Rest was 9:15 or so, speed was 8:00.  I walked a couple of times for 20-30 sec.  A little disappointing, but still a good workout.

Went for a night run.  Not sure why I love running at night so much more than mornings and even mid-day, but I do.  I didn't really want to go, but I also didn't want to have to do a 11 mile run tomorrow to get my 25mi in this week.  So I headed out and in the first mile I decided that I wasn't feeling it and was just going to run about 2mi and turn around.  By the time I got to 2mi I was feeling really good and decided to get in my 7+ long run tonight instead of trying to get up in the morning to do it with the full day I have tomorrow.  I got in the 7 and the plus.  :-)

I'll post splits later, but AP for the run was 9:03.

I had put in all this cool stuff about today and before I published it, my computer crashed for some odd reason.  So I'll put it in again since I want to remember it.

"The Great Race" is a 5/10k that my company is a major sponsor for.  We get free registration and up until last year, a cool tech tee to wear.  I haven't run it since it's on a Sunday, but I'm told it's a good course.  Anyways, another of the sponsors is one of the big hospitals here and their sports medicine area does a running clinic that's free.  So I signed up for it (open to anyone) and it was really good.  I got some really good validation on my form, strength, etc.  I don't know if they were just overly positive, but it felt good to hear positive things since I've been wondering about my leg strength, flexibility, form, etc.

Here's what they measured and what they said:

1)  Laid on back, brought leg straight up as high as possible, hold, then lower.  I was a little tight in the hamstrings, but looked good, so they just suggested a few extra stretches for me.

2)  Two-legged squat.  Heels up on a 2x8 board, bar behind head in a squat position, then lowered as far as possible and back up.  I was able to go all the way down and back up, which the lady was impressed with.  She asked if I did a lot of strength workouts and I said no, I just run hills and bike.  lol

3)  Range of motion, or something like that.  They place a string between two little posts that's lined up at your knee height.  You have to lift your leg up and over it, touch your heel then back.  They're looking for how straight you keep your leg (not bending it out to the side to get over it), and she said I looked perfect, leg was straight the whole time, etc.  This was the first exercise that I didn't know what they were looking for or evaluating since I it was in a different room.

Since I had told the lady that I called to schedule with that I was an "intermediate" runner, they had me come in with the beginners group instead of the first appointments which were for runners doing 30+ mpw which I'm not up to yet.  This was fine, but it also meant that I didn't get to visit with the sports med doctor, which was OK since I really didn't have any pains or major issues to discuss.  I still have pain under my big toes (right is much worse) because my "fat pads" are too thin and so the nerve gets irritated.  Neuromas are pretty much gone, but I still feel the left foot at times.  Nothing I can't deal with, and I just take some meds after running if they're bothering me too much.  Anyways, back to the eval.

4)  I was waiting in line to run on the treadmill and have my form/shoes evaluated, but it was going to take over an hour based on the number of people ahead of me.  It was put on by Elite Runners & Walkers, a store here in Pittsburgh.  They're about 20 mins away from me, so I figured that even though I could have just bailed and went out there to be evaluated that it would take me just as long.  A nice guy let me go do the % body fat, BP and hold my place.  I have a 18.1% body fat which is within the "normal" range of 18-24 or so for men.  I still feel like it's higher than it should be based on the belly fat and fat on the legs, etc.  Not a whole lot of definition.  My BP was higher (129/82) but she said her meter has been registering high all day.  Normally, I'm about 115/70.

5)  Elite Runners was happy to stay so everyone could be evaluated.  So I finally got to the front of the line and hopped on the TM.  He asked me what my pace was and I said 8:15-8:30 for a flat course.  He put it at 9:10.  He said that much below 9:00, the pace is too fast to evaluate well.  Nice boost to the ego.  Everything looked pretty good.  My cadence was about 160 and he said I should be up towards the 180, which I knew.  I've been trying to stride-out a little more since I felt like that was holding me back some.  I also needed a little more lean from the ankles, which I kinda suspected based on what I've read.  He said overall, I looked really good, good arm motion, good posture, etc.  So I was pretty happy about that!

After I was done with the clinic, I was really happy based on the eval results.  So I decided to go for my run then instead of waiting until a little later.  I had to finish up my 25 miles this week!  I did my long run last night and so I just had to finish out a few miles.

I ran from the car, down around the square (almost exactly a mile) a couple of times and back to the car.  I still have my Garmin set on 0.5mi splits and I kinda like it, so I haven't changed it back to mile splits.  It gives me something to mentally workout when the split says 4:43, I have to figure out what mile pace that is.

About the first .2mi, it was downhill, then just pretty flat with a little roll here and there.  Here are my 0.5mi splits:

0.5 - 3:47 (7:36 pace)
1.0 - 3:48 (7:37)
1.5 - 4:01 (8:03)
2.0 - 3:56 (7:52)
2.5 - 4:55 (9:51)
3.0 - 3:53 (7:47)
3.5 - 4:25 (8:50)

I think that my positive eval gave me some extra juice today.  Those first couple miles were FAST for me!  I didn't feel like I was really pushing it until after that second mile when I could feel the speed catching up to me.  I walked for a few seconds to catch my breath and started up again.  That 3.0 split was a lot faster than I had thought too.  I felt more confident that I was running like I should, that I had good form, etc.  So that helped me to just be able to run and not be quite as concerned about whether I had good form, etc. since I have concentrated on that for a while, I knew it was working.  I ran shirtless, which was good.  Got some sun.  I didn't see anyone get grossed out, so that was good too.

Oh, and I met my goal for this week.  6 days running and the 25 miles!  Woo hoo!