faster with age

Nice morning. overcast with temps in the 50s and no wind with a few occasional rain drops. I ran 12 miles at 8:04 pace and my hip seemed to be fine after 2 days off.

     PM   4 miles easy after dark.

     We had a lot of rain last night so I had to stick to the pavement this morning. I rode a total of 42 mles on my road bike. I had a close call with a car. I was going somewhere around 20 mph and came around a left curve in the road. I usually cut the corner [the road dosen't have much traffic and has no center lines] but I saw an oncoming car and made sure to stay on my side of the road. As I was coming out of the curve she turned right across in front of me to pull into a driveway on my side of the road. I locked up both wheels, skidded and was able to miss hitting the side of her SUV by a foot or two. I yelled out something I won't repeat as I got past her. Her husband was in the front yard and saw the whole thing and appeared to get upset with her as I was heading down the road. I'm sure she never even saw me and was only looking at the driveway she was turnig into.

     PM   Ran 2 miles in five fingers as a massive thunder storm was moving in. It was awsome to see the leading edge of the storm come right over but there was lots of lightning and it started getting too close so I came in. I was planning to run 5 but it has rained hard ever since.

     Ran 8 easy miles this morning. 8:19 pace.

     PM   6.5 miles. didn't get out till almost 11 o'clock. 2 miles were in five fingers. Overall pace 7:59.

     Went for 30 miles on the mt bike this morning. The whole first half of the ride was climbing and into a strong north east headwind and I was always going either north or east. Looking forward to the second half the whole time. Started out the first few miles of the second half cruising at 30 plus MPH with a nice tailwind. After about 4 miles the wind quit completely then actually became a strong headwind for the last few miles. How come I never get a tailwind both ways?  

     PM     ran 5.25 miles at 8:45 pace.

     Early afternoon run. Went 8 miles at 8:11 overall pace. There was a very strong wind and it caused my pace to vary anywhere from 9 min. to 7:06 depending on when I had a headwind or tail wind. It started to thunder and lightning and then rain during the last mile. Luckily that was one of the tailwind miles and I ran it the fastest.

     Didn't get out until about 6 pm. Perfect running weather with temps in the upper 50s and overcast. I was hoping to get a decent length run in but figured I would just go and see how I felt. Most of my runs this week I haven't had a lot of energy. I think that's because I added a lot of extra distance and intensity to the bike rides I did. My first mile felt the same way but after that my pace picked up without thinking about it and I was feeling good so I ended up going 15 miles which is my longest since SGM in October. It's also the first time I have run over 60 miles in a week since last July just before I tore my hamstring. My first mile was 8:23 and the fasteast was my last mile at 7:09. Overall pace for 15.2 miles was 7:39.