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Another five easy with winter conditions, I never had the furnace on at the end of may. It is unbelievably cold. 

I decided that my left leg is totally fine and it is time to resume some fast workouts.

This evening it was again cold and windy and the rain was coming. I wanted to do a short warm up for a couple of km then start with 6X400 with 200m recovery jog. After 2k I was still lethargic and it was mentally difficult to start pushing, I extended my warm up to 5k and at that point I wasn't feeling better but at least my legs were warmer. As soon as I started the first repeat I felt transformed, my legs after one week of slow stuff responded quickly and all the laziness disappeared. These were my splits: 76, 76, 78, 78 (this pace was more reasonable), 81 (here a car refused to move over and I was forced to run on the tall grass on the side of the road), 78.

I stopped the cool down once I reached 7 miles. A great workout.

It was another coldish evening for a run, at least there was natural light until 9:10pm.

It is really great to be able to run so late, nobody is around (no cars, bikers, people in general, just bats flying around), and if it was just a little bit warmer it would have been perfect.

10 easy miles, at the end of the run I felt completely recovered from yesterday run.

Short run, I started easy, I was feeling recovered and almost without any effort I finished at 5:00/k AP. It was surprising how that pace was easy. It was still cold and windy, it is really unbelievable this year.

Another cold evening run (temperatures below 50F are cold for the end of may for this part of the country). Nothing special about the run, I decided to keep the pace easy, saturday I will do another hilly 10kish race, I have somehow to taper for that.

Five easy miles, I am feeling rested and ready for a good race.

This race is a hard one with a big hill (about 150m high) to climb during the first 5k and then mostly downhill in the second half. The hardest past is represented by the constant terrain change, except for the first 2k and the last 2k, the surface is similar to a XC race, unpaved roads, dirt, rough concrete with holes and grass, mud and rocks, and both the climb and the downhill is broken in about 10 short walls followed by shorter downhill sections with a resulting constant uneven pace. The race starts at 5:30pm and for me this was a bonus, it rained all morning but it stopped early in the afternoon, so except for some mud, temperatures and overall conditions were great. This town is just 15 minutes drive from my house, after picking up the bib number I went for a short warm up and then I waited for the start of the race. I didn't have any goal time, just to go out and trying to stay with some fast people until the end. The race started on time, after 1k loop in town to thin the crowd we headed out of town to enter an unpaved road going up and up for the next 4k. Km 2 to 3 is the only constant steep climb, then the next 2k were a constant up and then down, for about 10 times. The downhill part was similar until km 7 when we reached the asphalt road and the terrain was more even. The last 1.3k started with a crazy downhill followed by a similar hill to climb and then the final down section to the finish line. I was with the fourth woman most of the time (a young 18 years old girl) that at km 7 on the asphalt took off, as she was just warming up up to that point, she passed the third woman that was about 100m from us  and finished 1 minute ahead of me. I was very happy with my time and position, I finished just 8 seconds from my unofficial fast pacer (I have never finished so close to this guy), my k splits show perfectly where the hills and the downhills were located: 3:48, 4:16, 4:36, 4:46, 4:41, 3:36, 3:39, 4:07, 3:53, 3:43 + about 1 minute to cover the last 350m.

 This race is considered about 2-3 minutes slower than a flat 10k, the top three african guys finished within few seconds from each other in 30:19, it was unbelievable how fast they were going on those hills.