The Renegade

Yeah........I geuss you could say that that wasn't the best run that I've ever had. 6 "easy" miles up to the tip of the Island and back, just like I did last Saturday, except from the school instead of my house. I felt moderatley fine up until about the end of Center Street (mile 1.5) Then the rest of the run I just had no energy, and it wasn't that cool out either. Probably a mix of unhealthy eating, dehydration, and sleep deprivation. I'll try to do better in those areas. 

Glad I got the mileage, though. I'll count that as the first run of my Cross-Country training season.

Had a pretty good but tough workout session today. Warmed up to Merlin Olsen Park (just under a mile), did some dynamic stretches, then I did six 800s at R-pace in a loop that circled about half the park. I treated the first 3 like the beginning of a race hitting around 3:10 for all of them, then the last three like the end, with a kick in the last stretch hitting 3 flat for all of them. I tried to do that relaxed sprint like I did in my 5K on saturday, but my body was pretty tight and it didn't work out as well. I was planning on doing eight repeats, but I knew it woulden't be in my best interest after the sixth rep. When I was done with that, I did three and a half minutes of core, four twenty second bare foot strides on the grass, and then some extra cooling down (800m) before I started back to the high school. I'll probably focus more on mileage volume for now on, but with a few of my own workouts peppered in here and there.

Not a particularly good run today. If I don't have a good run soon then that means that I did'nt take a big enough break. I did a loop down Park Avenue and then throughn the river trail back to the school. I just wasn't enjoying it. I had to stop a few times to rest and do extra stretching. Maybe because I didn't stretch before I started is the reason it sucked. I don't know. I just need XC to start soon, I hate training alone.

Felt pretty good today (glad I took yesterday off), so I decided to make up sort of my own workout. That was'nt my intention when I started, but then I just kind of went with it. I ran from the school to the bottom of River Heights Blvd., that was E-Pace, then I went harder than normal up the hill, (about 800m). When I got to the top, I was breathing pretty hard, so I had a recovery down through the nature park ( this was all a big loop) I ended up back at the bottom of the hills, and I went at tempo on the dirt road till I hit 200 south. Pretty short for a tempo run, but I also had the hills, too. I liked that workout, it had some variety and helped with recovery after a big set of hills, like in a race. The run was only about 30 min. long, I'll start increasing my time and distance next week. 

Today I probably had the weirdest and most interesting run ever. I'm up at my grandma's in Idaho, and I decided to take a dirt road that ran on last time I was here. I felt OK, I think the only reason I didn't feel great was because of the elevation change. There were some moderate hills, but nothing to trecherous. The first half was uneventful, then I got to a gate, and I hopped it and continued down the road. I turned around this ridge, and there were to dogs about 100 yards away by some sheds, and they were barking at me. That had me pretty scared. So I cautiously went passed and I hit the end of the road right after. There was another gate the led down to a house, with a black lab right behind it. By now I felt cornered and I thought I was going to get attacked, and the dog came up to me and started to jump on me. He was actually just being friendly, but I thought I was going to be disebowled. Very scary situation. Anyways I started running and he was following me. He ended up running next to me the whole two miles back. I wish I had a dog to run with.