14 miles this morning. BIG WORKOUT! After my hot dehydrating run yesterday afternoon just getting out for an early morning run was a victory. I had planned to do my 8.2-mile tempo up to water tank and down through the industrial park and back home. This is a very challenging place to do a tempo workout. The first 3.5 miles you just climb up a rocky, sandy dirt trail, and the last .5 of that is a killer hill up to the water tank. So anyways I did 3 a three-mile warm up over to GS and back to my house. Then I grabbed a drink and started the tempo. Goal was to PR on the course and finish the whole workout that included another three miles of cool down. So I’m off… The first 3.5 I was doing 5:20 min/mile effort and was only getting rewarded with 7:15-25 min/mile pace. It was just killer and by the time I got to the top and hit the road all I wanted to do was to stop the tempo and jog back home. But I pressed on defiantly feeling the effects of last nights run in my legs. Once on the road it took a half-mile to change gears and then I was around an honest 5:30 pace down to about one mile left and then I was done. It was like I got ran over by a truck and I limped home on a 6:15 min/mile pace to finish up at 52:14 for the 8.2 - a new PR on that course (old PR was 52:49 on very fresh legs). I was happy and kind of mad because had I not totally died on the last mile I could have been 51 min’s and something. This was a very good effort under the circumstances. I had to dig deep and push most of the run. Although the overall time was like 6:24 min/mile pace on a regular road in town this effort would have been at least 5:30 or lower even with some hills. After I finished the tempo I got another drink at home and did the 3 mile cool down (same as warm up). Workouts like this are very hard. In fact this could have been my hardest running workout ever. I think with one or two more workouts like this I’ll be ready for a big PR at STG. I was 145 lbs after run and after drinking some PowerAde. This ties my all time low since high school. 9.1 miles tonight with the running club. We did the Entrada loop. All at nice and easy pace. I wasn't going to push it even if the other guys wanted to take off. But they didn't so we just had a good run. We did most of it in the dark- the days are getting shorter, and we may need to meet at 7 p.m. | 