Same Time, Same Channel

Recovery + Speed - 7 miles w/ 8 x 100m strides.

5:20 am, 45° F, 75% humidity, wind 4 SE.

As usual, it was hard to get out of bed this morning. I was pretty sluggish today, but I managed to pick up the pace for the strides. Fortunately, strides are very short.

AP: 9:53.
Splits before the strides: 10:31, 10:43, 10:11, 10:09, 9:55, 0.54 @ 9:54.
Pace on the strides (with recovery pace in parentheses): 6:00 (10:45), 6:34 (9:42), 6:12 (9:37), 6:33 (9:33), 6:16 (10:26), 6:36 (9:18), 6:09 (9:35), 5:24.
After the strides: 0.49 @ 9:40.

Medium-long run.

5:18 am, 53° F, 80% humidity, wind 8 SSE.

This was my last weekday medium-long run of this training cycle. As usual, I had trouble dragging myself out of bed to do it.

I did the hilly County Line Road/McArthur Ranch Road loop. I paused my watch when I was stopped at the intersection of McArthur Ranch Road and Fairview waiting for a light, as I always do when I stop and wait for a light. My watch said 8.18 miles at that point. But when the light changed and I started going again, I neglected to restart my watch. It's a pity, because that's a fast portion of the course. I realized it a while later and started the watch and I estimated that I had missed timing about a half mile, but I wasn't sure of the exact distance that I had missed. I wanted to err on the side of running too far rather than running too short, so I ran until my watch said 12.00, even though I knew I had run roughly a half a mile more than that. I mapped the run on mapmyrun.com when I got home, and it said 12.65 miles, so I guess I ran for .65 miles without the watch running. So I've got 12 splits recorded, but the later ones are off because I failed to record .65 of the 9th mile. My average pace however, is based on my estimated actual total time and total distance.

A hazard of my running for too long in the morning: I called son #2 at 6:25 and asked him if son #3 was up, and he said that he was, so I didn't worry about it anymore. However, when I got home just after the time that son #3 should have left for school, I discovered that son #3 was just getting in the shower. Apparently he had been up at 6:25, but then went back to sleep. So he was late to school today.

AP: 9:10. Splits: 10:05, 9:55, 9:34, 9:22, 9:29, 9:12, 9:06, 8:57, 9:33, 8:53, 8:53, 8:53.

I don't know how I managed to be so consistent at the end. I didn't do it on purpose.

Recovery + Speed - 5 miles w/ 6 x 100m strides.

5:50 am, 43° F, 90% humidity, wind 4 SSE, overcast.

This run was good for me. I've been stressed out lately, particularly last night and this morning. The run calmed me down some. But I still have some problems to deal with today. Namely a broken pipe and my in-laws are coming today for my son's high school graduation, which is tomorrow. My son has a bunch of graduation practice and cap and gown pick up and that kind of stuff today. And I've got to work today. Fortunately, my house is still somewhat clean from the work I did for my brother's visit last weekend. I've just got to make sure there's nothing rotting in my refrigerator, because my mother-in-law will go through the refrigerator while I'm at work and then give me a report of everything that's spoiled and tell me she didn't throw it away because she thought I might be saving it for something. It makes me crazy. If I've left it there long enough for it to spoil, I've forgotten about it and am not saving it and don't enjoy hearing a recitation of all of the things I've failed to keep up with in my refrigerator.

I ran to the high school track this morning to do the strides. It only took me a little over 2 miles to get there, but I wanted to run 3 miles warmup, so I ran a couple of laps on the track before I started the strides. I might have pushed it a little too hard on a couple of the strides. Incidentally, I have no idea how people maintain 5:30 pace over the length of a marathon.

AP: 9:53.
Splits before the strides: 10:36, 10:06, 10:10.
Paces on the strides (recovery pace in parentheses): 6:11 (10:35), 5:56 (9:57), 6:25 (10:30), 6:21 (10:01), 6:15 (10:06), 5:33.
Splits after the strides: 10:08, 0.27 @ 9:34.

Recovery run.

5:40 am, 46° F, 89% humidity, no wind.

How about this? Two recovery days in a row. But then I have a mock tune-up race tomorrow and my last long run on Saturday.

I don't really consider myself a morning person. If I had no responsibilities, I would stay up late and sleep in. It is hard for me to get up in the morning. However, I have to say that once I am up, I really like the feel of the early mornings - the quietness and stillness and the crisp air. We really are having wonderful mornings for the most part these days - not too hot and not too cold. I'm starting to run into sprinklers on my runs now, but it's not warm enough for me to want to run through the sprinklers. That time will probably come soon.

High School Graduation is tonight. I've got to figure out how to get to Red Rocks Amphitheater. I've never been there.

AP: 10:03. Splits: 10:44, 10:09, 9:52, 9:45, 9:44. That really slow miles at the beginning really skews my average pace.

Tempo run of sorts.

8:27 am, 57-60° F, 60% humidity, winds calm, partly cloudy.

With all the very late nights I've endured this week, I couldn't drag myself out of bed to run at 4:30 this morning. So I reset my alarm for 6:30 and went back to sleep. Then I got up and worked until the kids were all gone to school, then I ran.

My training plan called for an 8K-10K tune-up race today with a total distance of 9-11 miles. I don't have a real race to run today or tomorrow, so I decided to do three miles warm up, then 6 miles at as close to 10K pace as I could get (the McMillan calculator puts my 10K pace at 7:27), and then run 2 miles cool down. I thought about making the fast part 6.2 miles, but I didn't want to try to turn it into a 10K because I couldn't really compare it with a real 10K race because I stopped and paused my watch at stop lights and I took a pit stop in a Walgreens midway through and paused my watch for that. Incidentally, during that pit stop at the Walgreens, I got locked in the stall. The little knob would turn around but it didn't move the lock mechanism. So I had to crawl under the stall wall, which involved dragging my sweaty body across the floor. It wasn't really a big deal to me, but I'm sure I left a bunch of sweat on their floor. I told the store manager about the locked door as I was leaving.

I saw a ton of signs for garage sales today. I actually ran past only 2 garage sales because most of my running was on main roads, not through neighborhoods. However, about a half a mile into my cool down I passed a garage sale and it was at the house of someone I know, so I stopped and talked to her for a couple of minutes and she gave me a nice cold water bottle, which I had a drink out of, and then I carried it with me on the rest of my run.

AP for whole run: 8:32. AP for fast portion: 7:45.

Splits: 10:13, 9:46, 9:31, 7:58, 8:15 (this is my hill of death), 7:46, 7:29, 7:37, 7:28, 8:57, 8:54.

The  long run that almost didn't happen.

7:44 pm, 78-53° F, 10-49% humidity, wind 16 NNW.

I couldn't run this morning because I had to take my MIL to the first part of the graduation for the high school that my husband teaches at so that she could hear the mariachi band that my husband directs. We had to leave at 8:00 in the morning and there was no way I was going to get 17 miles done before then. After we got home, it was too hot and windy and it was hot and windy all day. I almost didn't make it out, but I finally went out a little while after dinner. I tried to give my body a chance to digest dinner before I headed out, but I felt a little uncomfortable during the run anyway.

I felt like staying close to home, so I did a1.3 mile loop around my neighborhood. It was going to take a little over 13 loops to get 17 miles. I did 5 loops and then stopped at home for a pit stop and some water. I also picked up my head lamp at that point. My third son had joined me on his bike for the fourth loop. Then I did 5 more loops and stopped at home again for a pit stop and water again. But then instead of doing three more loops, I did my four mile loop once.

This was a really tough run for me. I almost blew it off, but I decided I shouldn't blow off my last long run before the marathon.

AP: 9:39. Splits: 10:10, 9:52, 9:50, 9:40, 9:32, 9:16, 9:13, 9:21, 9:17, 9:33, 9:41, 9:45, 9:26, 9:57, 9:55, 10:03, 9:28.