Cool Runnings!

Lunch - finally got out for a run again, after having been laid up basically all last week being sick and completely exhausted.  4 easy miles on the treadmill at 8:00 pace.  I will take it as a very good sign that this run felt very easy in every aspect.  I was originally planning on putting in a few miles this morning as well, but I didn't get to bed in time.  I'll try again tonight to get to bed by 10:00 so that I can get up early enough to run about 3 miles tomorrow morning.

Lunch - 4 miles on the treadmill again.  I did not get to bed early enough to run this morning.  Started off at 8:00 pace, then progressed to 7:30 pace after 1 mile and stayed there for the rest of the run.  I have been feeling a bit congested today; hoping that doesn't lead to anything else.  If I start to feel any worse, I will shut it down and drop out of the 5K this weekend.  However, today may just be due to allergies - we had a storm last night with rain and high winds that blew a lot of dust around, and I didn't take my claritin last night like I normally do.

Lunch - 4 miles on the treadmill.  First mile at 8:00 pace to warm up, second mile at 7:30 pace, 3rd mile at 7:00 pace (I am considering this marathon pace), then picked up the pace on the last mile to 5K pace - 5:42, to get myself ready for my 5K on Saturday.  It felt good, no issues, I feel good to go for this weekend.  I am looking forward to seeing what I can do, depending on what the weather throws at me.  I am trying to decide if I am also going to do the Moon Valley 5K this year as well, since it is only a few weeks before St. George - I guess I will have to see.

Afterwards, did 1 minute of planks facing downward and 1 minute on each side, then did some knee raises.  Last week when I was sick, I gained back all the weight I had lost so far, and I am hoping some of it is just due to perhaps water retention or something like that.

Lunch - 5.1 easy miles outside today.  It was too gorgeous to pass up today - about 80 degrees, cloudy with some occasional spitting rain.  Beautiful!  The run felt very good - no soreness at all, except in my arms and pecs.  I made the mistake of doing pushups with my webelos scouts last night as they were finishing up with their athlete activity badge.  I managed to do 35 (not too bad), but now I am paying for it.  It looks like the weather is going to be beautiful this weekend - I am looking forward to the race.

Lunch - nice easy run outside again.  I couldn't pass up running in this weather again - it was so beautiful!  5.71 miles at average pace of 7:30/mile.  Felt nice and easy.  I ended up running up to where the 5K is tomorrow and running the 5K course, then coming back.  It was quite nice, and I'm glad I had the chance to refresh my memory on what the course is like.

AM - Burt met me at 6:15, and we headed off to Papago Park to the first of the Arizona Road Racers summer race series. We got there with plenty of time, and I picked up my bib and timing chip. This race is the only one of the series that employs a age and gender handicap, where you start a certain number minutes after the gun to avoid congestion, and the entire race is timed by chip time instead of clock time. My age group handicap was 13:52. After running nice easy 1.5 mile warmup, I got in line and waited to get going. There were a lot more people there this year as opposed to last year, so it was more crowded than before. Time for the race was 19:00 flat, with splits below.

Mile 1 - 5:53 - I hit 5:10 pace during this first mile at some point, which probably did me in. This mile was also the craziest, with my having to slow down and speed up multiple times due to the sheer number of slower runners in front of me.

Mile 2 - 6:15 - on this mile, which included the turnaround, I realized that I was not going to reach my goal of sub-18:00, because I was already struggling, and I decided to slow it down a bit.

Mile 3 - 6:13 - This mile included a nice downhill where I actually hit 4:50 pace, otherwise it would have been a bit slower.

Final 0.11 - :38 - 5:28 average pace, and I hit 4:40 pace during my kick.

I ended up 36th overall and 6th in my age division. In retrospect, I am pretty happy with this result given that last week I missed the entire week except Monday due to sickness, and it was also very humid today, even though the weather was pretty nice. Burt did a great job getting a new PR in the 5K, so congratulations to him.

On a side note, Olympic hopeful Sara Slattery was in the race. The announcer said she still held the all-time HS state record in the mile at 4:48. I saw her coming back while I was heading out and didn't recognize her at the time, but heard her yell at the runners crowding the other lane to move. She was booking it, and ended up being the first overall finisher in spite of the handicap.