Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run + 8 x 10 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:38. Shred level 1.

8:30 am, 60° F, 33% humidity, wind 6 SSW.

I had to pay this morning for running last Saturday's workout too fast. I started out really slowly, but I did get going a little better after a couple of miles. Splits for the 6 mile easy run were 10:08, 9:41, 9:33, 9:15, 9:19, 8:56. I did okay on the hill sprints. Paces were 6:36, 6:28, 6:59, 6:58, 6:23, 6:53, 6:52, 5:33.

I thought about doing one of the hour-long Jillian Michaels videos that I have instead of the 20-minte shred since I'm not in a hurry today. But I'm still somewhat under the weather, so I decided not to push myself too hard.

They're doing a little bit of construction along the route I usually run. In one section, they're replacing a fence, and so they've got men and machinery on the sidewalk and the shoulder of the road and have one lane closed. In another section, they're replacing the gutter, so it's the same kind of blockage. If I were running early in the morning like I would if I were working, it would not be much of an issue because the machinery would be put away and the workmen wouldn't be there. But running later in the morning like I'm doing, I have to run around the machinery and past all the workmen. Oh well.

Specific-Endurance Intervals - 2 miles easy, 5 x 1 mile @ 10K pace w/3-min. active recoveries, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 8:35.

9:00 am, 49° F, 69% humidity, wind 5 NNW. 49 degrees is not that cold, but I felt chilly on this run whenever I was running at an easy pace. I think it was because of that North wind.

I debated whether to run this workout today or run easy today and save this workout for tomorrow because tomorrow I'm going up to Westminster to run with the FFF (Fabulously Fast and Fit) Nan. But the weather is supposed to be bad tomorrow, so I decided to get the hard workout done today while the weather was tolerable. Also, I put on the magic shoes, so I had no choice but to run fast. So I guess I'll have to make Nan run slowly tomorrow.

My pace for the 2 mile warm-up was 9:32. My target 10K pace was 7:45. My splits for the 5 x 1 miles were 7:58, 7:49, 7:41, 7:38, 7:37. My pace for the 2 mile cool-down was 9:04.

During the 3-min. recovery after my first fast mile, I passed a guy standing at an intersection holding a sign encouraging people to vote for 4 school board candidates. As I went past, I told him that I voted for all four of them (it's a mail-in ballot only) and he said, "You rock." That's kind of a nice thing to hear as you're running along.

Tempo Run. Average pace: 8:34.

33°F, 97% humidity, winds calm, light rain/snow.

I drove up to Westminster early this morning to run with Nan. I've heard that if you want to become a faster runner, you should run with someone who's faster than you. So that's what I did today. Nan is A LOT faster than me. According to my training plan, and because I did a hard workout yesterday, I was supposed to do an easy run today. However, I knew that if I tried to do an easy run with Nan, I would run it too fast and it wouldn't really be easy. So I decided just to do tomorrow's tempo run instead, and then I'll run easy tomorrow and on Friday.

We did a warm up for the first two miles, though they were a little faster than I usually run my warm up. Splits were 8:56 and 8:42. Then we did 7 miles near my half-marathon pace. Splits were 8:16, 8:17, 8:07, 8:13, 8:20, 8:19, and 8:05. I was pretty beat by that point, so we slowed down for the rest of the run. Splits were 8:58, and 9:27, and then the last half mile at 9:47 pace. We were pretty wet and muddy by the time we finished. Nan had had a nice recovery run and I had had a hard workout.

It was really fun to run with Nan and to get to know her a little bit and to meet her cute family. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Nan for letting me come.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:11.

9:20 am, 34°F, 85% humidity, winds calm.

Last night it occurred to me that there was no reason to be constrained to running the roads around my neighborhood today and the idea of running on the softer and flatter trail was appealing to me, so I called up my friend Michelle and invited her to run 6 miles on the Highline Canal Trail this morning. So that's what we did. My kids tended her kids while we ran. She also ran 4 miles on the indoor track with her friend this morning, so she did doubles today for a total of 10 miles. She's really been doing a great job with her running and is getting in really good shape. It was nice to run with her today.

We ran a little faster than we intended to. We realized today that she runs faster when she runs with me than she does at other times because she thinks that I'm fast and doesn't want to slow me down. The thing is, I often run faster with her than I do at other times. We kept saying that we should slow down a bit, but we never really did. Splits were 9;12, 9:06, 9:06, 9:10, 9;20, 9:13.

Update: Shred Level 2.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:33.

7:30 am, 38°F, 75% humidity, wind 2 S.

I've had a busy morning. I got up and did my run, then I went over to Michelle's house and did a 45 min. P90X workout with her and the other Michelle. Then I came back home, ate a quick breakfast and took a shower, then I had to take my car in for maintenance. Michelle picked me up from the car place, and then we went out to lunch.

The run this morning was pleasant. The fence builders weren't out yet, but I saw them getting set up when I drove to Michelle's house after my run. Splits were 9:59, 9:37, 9:36, 9:31, 9:28, 9:16, with the last bit at 9:09. I think it's interesting that I got so gradually faster throughout the run. That wasn't my intention; just the way it worked out.

I bummed that this is the last day of my vacation. Usually I'm happy when it's Friday and it's time for the weekend, but I wish this week would have gone on longer. It's back to the grindstone on Monday.

Long run. Average pace: 9:32.

43-60° F, humidity 55% going down to 32%, winds calm.

I don't know what came over me today. I fully intended to run 16 miles. That's what was on my plan. It was going to work out very symetrically, because Carly joined Michelle and Michelle and me for our standard Saturday morning on the Highline Canal Trail. Carly ran 4 miles, and Michelle and Michelle doubled that for 8, and I was going to double that for 16. But after Michelle and Michelle dropped off and I was on my own, I was feeling good, the weather was perfect, the trail was in good shape and was nice and soft, I wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere, and I thought that maybe I could run 18 instead of 16 because that wouldn't be much harder. And then I thought that if I was doing 18, I might as well do 20. I was only at about 9 miles when I made that decision, but I stuck with it. I hadn't done a real long run in a while, and it just seemed like a nice thing to do. I would have had the highest weekly mileage that I've had in a while even with the 16.

As I said already, the trail was very nice today. Several stretches were covered in leaves. I would estimate that a little less than half of the trail was covered in leaves. It was overcast and shady for the first several miles, but was sunny by the end of my run.

Splits were 9:36, 9:28, 9:37, 9:48, 9:45, 9:46, 9:47, 9:38, 9:52 (this was my first mile by myself and I stopped for a bit to mess with my MP3 player, which I had not used while running with others, and I forgot to pause my watch while I was stopped), 9:21, 9;44, 9:30, 9:36, 9;26, 9;18, 9:33, 9:44 (at this point I realized that I was getting slower and I realized that with a little extra effort I could keep the pace up), 9:13, 9:02, 8:54.

I had invited the Michelles to run the full 16 with me and if they had, I would have stopped at 16. I talked to Michelle #1 afterwards and she said that she wished she had done 16 with me. Maybe she'll do 14 with me next Saturday.