Same Time, Same Channel

Easy Run - 5 miles + 1 x 8 sec. hill sprint.

6:03 am, 45° F, 54% humidity, wind 3 NW.

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night because I took a late afternoon nap yesterday and that messed me up. Nevertheless, I got out the door at a decent time this morning, which enabled me to be home from my run before my son left for school.

I'm officially starting a 20-week marathon training plan today. It's the marathon plan level 1 from Run Faster by Brad Hudson. I did the level 2 plan from that book when I was preparing for the Ogden Marathon a couple of years ago, but I'm not up to the mileage of the level 2 plan right now. So I'll be doing a lot of hill sprints in the next few weeks. It starts out slow, with just the one hill sprint today. Incidentally, I was pumping my arms so hard on that hill sprint this morning that I pulled my head phones out of my ears.

I saw my husband driving my son to seminary while I was running today.

AP: 9:57. Splits: 10:31, 10:21, 10:00 9:39, 9:26, then just a little bit (just less than 0.1 miles) at 9:05 to get to the bottom of the hill sprint hill. The pace for the 8 sec. hill sprint was 6:46.

Sort of a progression run.

6:14 am, 37° F, 80% humidity, wind 2 S.

Last night I thought about switching this run tomorrow so that I could drive to seminary today and because the kids don't have school tomorrow. But then I found out that there was no seminary today, so I went  back to plan A and did the run.

It was supposed to be an easy run, and I certainly started out easy enough, but then I got going faster on the 2nd half. It wasn't quite a real progression run because the 5th mile was slower than the 4th. I enjoyed the gradual down hill for most of the 6th mile, but not the steep uphill at the very end. I had to go all the way up the hill sprint hill and then more uphill on my street at the end of this run.

Tomorrow morning is my weigh in. Stay tuned for more information.

AP: 9:51. Splits: 10:36, 10:10, 10:05, 9:33, 9:38, 9:01.

Well, I did my weigh-in this morning. The result is -2.4 pounds. (Now that I'm using Wii Fit to weigh myself, I get accuracy to 1/10 of a pound.) That's not quite as much as I hoped, but I wasn't as diligent about the diet this past week as I was previous weeks. It's time to get serious again.

After the weigh-in, I didn't want to do the shred. I just wanted to read my book. I'm reading Fall of Giants by Ken Follett (thanks to Tracy's blog for the recommendation). I read a bit, but then I made myself do the shred (level 2). So now I'm sweaty and smelly. I guess I better take a shower.

Easy run + 1 x 8 sec. hill sprint.

6:37 am, 38° F, 94% humidity, winds calm.

I did my regular 4-mile loop which puts me back at my house after 4 miles, but then I kept running because I had to get to the bottom of the hill sprint hill to do my one hill sprint. So it turns out that the bottom of the hill sprint hill is 0.22 miles from my house. I did the one hill sprint, then walked back home.

I'm struggling with the diet. I didn't do so well yesterday. But now the brownies are gone so maybe I can be good again.

AP: 9:51. Splits: 10:36 (I sure start slowly), 9:56, 9:39, 9:25, 0.22 @ 9:19, 8-sec hill sprint @ 6:13.

I did the shred this morning according to my plan.

I'm really busy with work, so I don't have time to write much.

Long run.

6:21 am, 37-40° F, 16% humidity, winds calm.

I met up with Michelle, Michelle and Allie at the Highline Canal Trail this morning. We met at 6:15 instead of our usual time of 7:15. Now that the runs are getting longer, we're starting earlier so that we can finish at a reasonable time. Michelle #2 invited another friend, also named Michelle, who get there a few minutes later. Michelle and Allie and I did a mile before meeting up with Michelle #2 and Michelle #3, but those two Michelles quickly pulled ahead of us. They were running 8 miles, instead of the 16 that the rest of us were doing, so they could afford to run a little faster. So really it was just the three of us the whole way.

I had a vanilla gu after about 8 1/2 miles and that might have helped a little.

With about 3 miles to go, I pulled out ahead of the others and I thought I had a pretty good lead on them, but I didn't know because I never looked back. And then with a mile to go Michelle went past me and got a good chunk ahead of me and I never caught up with her. I guess we had our own little impromptu race, but not really.

My daughter has started a gymnastics class that takes place the rec center that we start from when we run that trail. Her class starts at 9:00 and we finished the run at 9:00, so after I finished I went in and watched her gymnastics class. I had brought dry clothes to change into, but I was still cold.

We ran a little faster this week than we did last week. We only had 3 miles over the whole run that were slower than 10:00, and they weren't much slower.  I pushed it again on the last mile, but as I said before, I didn't push it enough to catch speedy Michelle.

AP: 9:49. Splits: 9:54, 9:52, 9:44, 9:41, 9:41, 9:51, 9:42, 9:42, 10:06, 9:56, 9:42, 10:03, 9:53, 10:04, 9:56, 9:11.