Bret

PM - late.  6.0 miles easy.  Long day with church and funeral - then a gathering at the house.  Wife actually suggested I looked like I needed to run.  So I went out in the rain around 9 pm.  First 3 were good stress relief but was really pretty tired after that.

AM  - Early start 5.0 miles to begin the day.  Will squeeze in another run around lunchtime today.  Felt too tired to do a run this morning, but once I got out the door, the run was good and felt better that I had done it.

PM - lunchtime run on the treadmill.  7.0 miles at a reasonably quick pace.  First two miles were below 7:15 pace - then moved to 6:50 pace with the last 4 miles at 6:30 or better.  Tight schedule today did not allow for longer run.  Amazed at how "comfortable" the pace is feeling even well below 6:30.  A month or two ago, I would have dreaded a workout where I planned to run that "fast" and would have viewed it as a hard workout, and now I am not intimidated by the pace and would not even count this as a hard training session...must be doing something right!

AM - 5.25 easy miles out the door at 5:45.  A little less humidity this morning, relaxing recovery run.  Plan to do 6-7 at lunchtime with Richie.

PM - 6.0 lunchtime run with Richie.  We used to train together at lunch everyday when our jobs were in the same location/building, and then later when we both were gearing up for races even after our jobs were not in the same place and not really convenient to do lunchtime runs, we'd coordinate early morning runs or weekend long runs together.  It has probably been several months since we did a run together - so it was nice to see him, get caught up on things, and talk about the NYC that we are both planning to run in November.

Richie's training has been admittedly on his part a bit spotty over the summer.  He's been doing something called P90 X training and some basic running.  His longest run was two weeks ago at 12 miles.  But he said he felt good and excited and bolted out to a quick pace which kind of surprised me, but I went with it.  Around 2.5 miles into the run, he asked how far we'd gone and what pace we were running - which was 7:30 pace.  We needed to slow things down a little bit shortly thereafter and then he decided to finish up at 5 miles and I went ahead at his suggestion to tack on an extra mile at the end. 

At this point his plan is to go to NY and run with another mutual friend who is doing the race for charity and depending on how his training goes will decide how fast or slow he will go.  Last year he went 3:01, but had a very strong build-up, was very fit and was extremely focused mentally on going fast.  He doesn't seem to have that same focus yet this year, but he is a great runner and gets fit pretty quickly, so we'll see. 

AM - out the door by 5:15 - I did 13.0 miles this morning.  I was a bit on the slow side - only going about 8:15-8:30 pace.  I have been doing most of my longer runs on the treadmill, but this was outside and though it was not as warm as it has been, it was quite humid, with my shoes squishing with sweat around the 6 mile mark and onward.  Were the marathon today, I would have struggled to finish.  No food or drink before or during the run - probably played a bit of a factor.

AM - 6.0 miles easy to moderate pace.  Soreness on the upper part of left foot - very wary and paranoid due to a stress fracture near that area last year around this time.  Will continue to monitor it and rest if it seems to be anything more significant.

PM - 6.0 mile lunchtime run.  Pleasant day with unseasonably lower humidity than normal.  Was really nice running weather.  Noticed some soreness in the foot about midway through the run - stopped and walked a little bit - resumed pain/soreness-free thereafter. 

AM - 9.0 miles on treadmill. First 6 were moderate to fast and then last 3 were threshold. Felt great - no foot pain at all.

AM - 7.0 miles early - in Atlanta for daughter Delaney's soccer tournament. Cooler temps and way less humidity than at home. Great run. First 5 miles easy then 1 mile at threshold and 1 mile at VO2 or close thereto - 5:30 pace.