Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run + 9 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:52.

41°, 81% humidity, wind 6 NW.

I slept in for an hour and ran later this morning because my husband has a comp day today and so he could do the driving to seminary. As a result, I had to deal with some middle schoolers on my hill when I was doing my hill sprints.

There was a little drizzling rain when I started my run, but then it stopped. The weather wasn't downright nastry today, but it was unpleasant. I guess it was a little taste of things to come.

Splits for the 6 miles were 10:08, 9:40, 9:34, 9:30, 9:32, 9:27. Paces on the hill sprints were 7:18, 7:12, 6:15, 8:00, 7:04, 6:35, 7:20, 6:08, 6:47.

Hill Repetitions - 2 miles easy, 8 x 50 sec. uphill @ 5K effort w/jog-back recoveries, 2 miles easy.

30-Day Shred Level 1

40°F, 58% humidity, winds calm.

Alone. In the cold. In the dark.

Actually, the hill repetitions warmed me up pretty well, but I got cold really quickly after I finished the run.

There was a street sign that I kept not quite reaching on each hill repetition. I decided that I would try to reach it on the last repetition. I almost made it to the sign on the last repetition, but not quite. Pace on the hill repetitions was 7:22, 7:44, 7:32, 7:33, 7:19, 7:20, 7:28, 6:47.

Happy Autumnal Equinox everyone.

Easy Eight. Average pace: 9:26.

44°F, 64% humidity, winds calm.

I'm tired and hungry and cold.

Splits: 9:45, 9;28, 9:19, 9:14, 9:33, 9:13, 9:27, 9:27

Threshold Run - 2 miles easy, 2 x 15 min. @ half-marathon pace/10K pace w/1 min. active recovery, 2 miles easy.

30-Day Shred Level 1

41°F, 82% humidity, winds calm.

Since I struggled so much with the hills and the wind last time I did a workout like this, I decided to try it out on the track this time. I went to the Middle School track, which is about 1/4 mile from my house, but I ran a 2 mile out-of-the-way route as a warm up to get there. I actually kind of liked running this on the track. It made it easy to keep track of my pace without using the Garmin's pace calculation.

My target for the first interval was 8:00 pace, which equated roughly to 2 minutes per lap. I checked the time on my watch at each lap to make sure I stayed on pace and I actually managed to run 8:00 pace, according to my Garmin. I ran almost exactly 7 1/2 laps in the first interval and the Garmin says 1.87 miles.

My target for the second interval was 7:45 pace, and I knew from the first lap that I was going a little faster than that, but I just kept up the same pace that I had in the first lap. I knew what my time should be at the end of each lap and I just kept getting increasingly below that time. I ran just barely more than 8 laps during the second interval. The Garmin says 2.01 miles @ 7:28 pace.

A person (I couldn't tell whether it was a man or woman) and a dog showed up on the track during my second interval. They were taking a leisurely stroll in the inside lane. I lapped them 3 times. I was running in the inside lane and so I had to go out around them. I was a little annoyed that they didn't move into an outside lane. They left the track shortly before I did and I actually passed them one more time on the trail during my cool down.

On the whole, I feel pretty good about today's run. I didn't mind running alone in the dark on the track and it was so much easier to maintain a steady pace on the track than it is on the road.

Standard Six + in Sixty Minutes. Average pace: 9:35.

30-Day Shred Level 1

46°F 81% humidity, wind 2 ESE.

My kids are off of school today because the teachers have a professional development day, so I slept in until about 5:15 this morning since I didn't have to drive any kids anywhere. The streets were wet from rain, but the rain had stopped by the time I got out.

Progression Run. 14 miles w/ last 20 min. moderate. Average pace: 8:50.

58°F, 38% humidity, wind 4-8 SSW.

Perfect weather for running on the Highline Canal Trail. The trail was quite shady and the breeze was cooling. After a week of freezing in the mornings, the weather for this run was fabulous. Today is warmer than it's been all week plus I was out later in the day.

We did not have a big turnout for running group today. It was just Michelle and me. Michelle is very consistent and dependable. I appreciate that. She wanted to do just 6 today so that she could go to the local high school Homecoming Parade. Even though I've got two kids at that high school, I skipped the parade. We started out kind of fast and when we were nearly finished with three miles, she commented that it felt faster to her. I hadn't been looking at my watch, so I was surprised to see how fast we had been going. We slowed down a little for the next 3 miles, but still kept up a decent pace. The splits for the six miles I did with her were 9:05, 8:51, 8:58, 9:14, 9:15, 9:10. I kept going after she stopped and my splits were 9:03, 9:01, 9:05, 8:59, 9:00, and 8.56 (for a half mile). Then I started my faster part and tried to keep it moderate, but maybe bordered on hard some of the time. In any case, in the 20 minutes I ran 2.57 miles at 7:48 average pace.

About midway through my fast part I passed a group going the other direction that looked like 2 married couples. The 2 women each had a dog on a leash, and the 2 men were each pushing a double stroller with a couple of kids, plus there was a little boy, probably 7 or 8 years old, riding a bike. I had a turn around shortly after I passed them and so then I was behind them. They were going at a pretty good clip because I had a hard time passing them despite that I was running pretty fast. About the time I was passing them, they took a turn off the trail onto a street and the little boy on the bike nearly hit me. I had to call to him to watch out.

During my cool down walk I talked briefly to a woman that I see on the trail pretty regularly on Saturday mornings, and who I talked to even more briefly last Saturday before the race. So I am meeting some more runners, which is nice. Incidentally, there were a ton of people on the trail this morning.