Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run.

6:40 am, 34° F, 37% humidity, wind 5 SW.

When I turned on my Garmin this morning it gave me a low battery warning. That's a bad sign when you get a low battery warning as soon as you turn it on. I was confused because I just charged it last Friday, and have only used it on my Saturday run since then. But I think it got left in the charger but not plugged in after I uploaded my run on Saturday, and that must have sucked the power out of it. In any case, I had 10 minutes until I had to be out the door, so I charged it for 10 minutes. I really didn't think it would last for my whole run, but happy day, it did.

I met Lindsay a little ways past the corner where we're supposed to meet. She has an iPhone and she downloaded some mapmyrun app for it and got an arm band, so she had that to track distance. That was good since I was worried about my Garmin dying and I wanted to make sure that she did 5 miles today. Because we met beyond half way between our houses, I had gone about .3 miles more than her.

My watch was just past 4 miles when we made it to her house. She went in for a pit stop and I stretched a little, then she came back out and we did a mile loop that brought us back to her house, so she got 5 miles in. But then I still had to run home from her house.

At one point a squirrel joined us and ran along the top of a fence just ahead of us for a little while. He was faster than us, but I think we could have outlasted him.

College boy is back in school after being off last week, but my other kids are on Spring Break this week.  That makes my mornings a little more leisurely.

AP: 10:07. Splits: 10:18, 10:21, 10:16, 10:03, 9:55, 10:06, 0.5 @ 9:34.

My daughter practiced the piano this morning while I was doing the shred. That woke up her teenage brother.

Not quite easy run + 5 x 10 sec. hill sprints.

7:52 am, 36-44° F, 28% humidity, winds calm, sunny.

I started out with Spanish Flea again like I did last Wednesday, but the random songs after that weren't as good as last Wednesday and I did not feel as strong as I did last Wednesday. I did the old 6 mile route that I used to do all the time. It has the big hill I talk about all the time in it. It was in roughly the 3rd mile today. I followed up the 6 miles with 5 10-sec hill sprints.

The weather station I looked at before I left said 31°F, so I wore two shirts but skipped the ear band and gloves because I knew it would be warming up. I'm not sure how accurate that 31 was, because halfway through the run I took the outer shirt off and I was wishing for a short sleeved shirt at that point. I think the weather stats I've posted above are more accurate. In any case, it certainly did warm up a lot during my run and it was very sunny.

AP for the first 6 miles: 10:03. Splits: 10:27, 9:59, 10:11, 9:43, 10:04, 9:53.
Pace on the hill sprints: 7:46, 8:15, 7:19, 6:50, 6:23.

Easy run.

6:00 am, 33° F, 46% humidity, winds calm.

I decided to run on Thursday instead of Friday this week to see if that makes me more rested and better able to handle the Saturday long run. Since I normally run with Lindsay on Fridays, I called her to see if she wanted to run Thursday with me instead. She agreed, but her husband has to be work earlier on Thursdays and so we had to start a little earlier than we do on other days. That meant I had to break out the head lamp again.

We did loop that got her back to her house by the time her husband needed to leave, and then I had to run home from there by myself. When I got near to my house I realized that if I went home the normal way I would be a little under 5 miles when I got home. I could go a little past my house and then back to get the 5 miles, but instead I decided to take a detour. Well, the detour turned out to be longer than I anticipated, so instead of approaching 5 miles as I got to my house, I was approaching 5.5 miles as I approached my house. So I went a few house lengths beyond to get to the 5.5 miles then stopped and walked back home.

AP: 10:08. Splits: 10:30, 10:13, 10:01, 10:05, 10:01, 0.5 @ 9:44.

Long run.

7:17 am, 27-38° F, 85% humidity, wind 2 various directions.

I've decided that 10 miles qualifies as a long run. Michelle and I ran together as we have done for the last several Saturdays, but for the first time in a long time, we went to the Highline Canal Trail today. We decided that the softer surface and fewer hills would be better.

The trail was pretty empty when we first started. I think we only saw one other runner (and a coyote) in the first 3 miles. But then shortly after that the masses came out and there were a lot of runners on the trail. I guess they all got a slightly later start than we did.

We keep adding just a little distance each Saturday, but so far so good.We pushed the pace the last 0.1 and I kept up with Michelle this time and didn't quite throw up.

The last time I ran 10 miles or more was last July 31, when I ran 12.09 miles, so in a few more weeks here I will exceed that, and then I'll have to go back to the marathon I ran last June to get a longer distance than what I'll be running on Saturdays then.

AP: 10:03. Splits: 10:08, 9:59, 9:50, 9:51, 9:56, 10:10, 10:15, 10:11, 10:15, 9:50.