Bret

AM - 4.0 miles easy this morning with Riley (sent Delaney off to running camp in NC yesterday).  Riley pressed the pace (for her) the second mile and when I told her she was going faster than usual, she said she wanted to see how long she could sustain the pace (about 8 mpm) - so I said, OK - but it may be unpleasant for you later.  Deciding that she should experience it rather than taking my word for it - she lasted until just about the last mile when she slowed a bit and complained that I should have told her to slow down.  HA!

Anyway she finished just under 9 mins for the last mile - no worse for the wear.

I felt a little sluggish in the first half mile after taking yesterday off - but felt fine the rest of the way.  Will do a run later today, probably on the treadmill.

PM - lunchtime run of 6 miles on the treadmill.  Used the Garmin HR workout feature and kept the HR in zone 3 which for me was between 130 and 148 or appx top end of 80% max HR.  Took over a mile to hit the target zone and then toward the end of the run I exceeded the top end a couple of times - for a few seconds - probably from body temp.  Ran steady at 7:15 pace after warming up to it during the first mile.  Felt very solid and comfortable at that pace and my legs had some pop that I was holding back.  Will be tapering now for the next couple of weeks.

PM - lunchtime workout on the treadmill - Fartlek:  2 mile warm up 2 times (3 x 90 secs; 3 x 60 seconds; 4 x 45 seconds equal recovery )  The long reps were at 5:45 pace, the medium at 5:30 and the fast ones at 5:15 pace.  1 mile cool down.  Felt very much within myself on these reps and the volume did not phase me either.    Good workout. 

PM - after work 8.0 miles on the treadmill in an hour's time.  Felt very relaxed.  Good recovery run.  I did yesterday's workout at lunch so, I tried to stretch the recovery time by doing today's run later in the day and tried to get a little more sleep this morning - got almost 6.5 hours of sleep - better than my average which usually under 6.

PM - lunchtime workout.  4 mile warm up then 6 x 400 at 78-80 sec pace with 3 min recovery and a 1.5 mile cool down.  Top of my left foot, at the first metatarsal was noticeably tender/sore yesterday evening and this morning - possibly too many runs in a row on the treadmill (as I have not used the Vibrams at all) - so I did this run outside.  It did not give me any problems running - but the high heat and humidity (heat index of 104) really drained me toward the end of the run. 

PM - lunchtime run outside.  Of course very hot and humid, but I wanted to stay off the treadmill and I have been skipping morning runs in favor of getting more rest.  7 hours of sleep last night.  I wore the heartrate monitor and kept the pace under a 75% HR effort - which required me to slow down in the last couple of miles probably because of heat - not because the pace was too hard.  First metatarsal on left foot was tender again today, and was somewhat noticeable for the first 2 miles.  I cannot decide if it is the beginning of an injury to the bone or just some tendonitis from treadmill running for a couple of days in a row.  Keeping an eye on it.

Early AM - had a nice run with the group in Clearwater this morning.  I went down early and ran 5 (basically over to the beach and back) and waited for my friend Ken and the rest of the group to start at 6 am.  Had a nice mix this morning.  Ken and I ran with a college aged young lady who was starting her training for the Columbus marathon.  We ran over both the main bridge to the beach and the Sand Key bridge to the Marriott and got some water and then ran back over them again.  On way out on the Sand Key bridge I did a couple of surges to test my legs and lungs - and felt very fit and light.  I did the same coming back over the main bridge.  Closest thing we have to hills. 

The first 5 miles on my own were a bit ragged - my left foot - 1st metatarsal was tender and took about 2 miles to warm up - and then I had some kinda low blood surgar thing going on - like I was getting shakey and needed to eat.  So when I got back to the car, I had some Gatorade, which seemed to solve that problem.  The run with the group was great and I felt as if I really hadn't put much effort in when I was done.