I only run on days that end in a "y."

Eight and a half easy/recovery miles.  I stayed on the grass/dirt next to the streets and sidewalks as much as possible.  It was very muddy and slick in some spots from the rain, and I again went down with less than a half a mile to go.  Muddy hands and a bruised ankle - from hitting it against a curb.  Not fun, hopefully I can run tomorrow.  I'll take an external injury instead of an internal one any day - fortunately I did not pull anything.

Other than that a great run - I could have kept on going.

8:25 AP.

Medium long run day - skipped the group fun of doing 1000m repeats on the hills.  I met Russ and Mike at BS pool for the 11 mile loop.  I got there a bit early and did 1.3 mile warm up.  I had hoped I could pick it up on the last 2-3 miles for a bit of a progressive run but the legs were having none of it.  Mike and Russ took off, of course, this is getting a bit disheartening.  Sigh.  Maybe I should start running by myself again - I probably won't feel so bad after these runs.  

The trail was pretty wet so for sure that took 10-15 seconds of pace off per mile - I can find no other reason why the paces felt a lot harder than they were on the final 5 miles.   I think my legs were still feeling it from Saturday, so I backed off a bit on the last mile instead of pushing harder.

45 degrees but 100% humidity and fog.  I was getting warm towards the end though even with a short sleeve on.

1.3 @ 9:00 pace, then 8:56, 7:59, 7:34, 7:25, 7:06, 6:45, 7:01, 7:10, 6:55, 7:07, 7:15.  (7:24 AP)

5 miles @ 8 pm.  Decided to go run otherwise I was going to fall asleep.  LOL.

AP 8:09 with 5 x 15 seconds steep hill sprints afterward.  Fortunately there is a short but extremely steep hill right across the street from my front door.

75 degrees and sunny at lunchtime.  I ran the soft trail loop in my soft shoes at recovery pace.  I tried to run slower but I don't think my legs will let me run a 9:00 mile -  I tried.  AP - 8:34.

My legs are tingling from the recent runs/workouts.  I thought 5 miles was more than enough for today.

What to do, what to do.  I got an email from Russ yesterday saying he was skipping the scheduled workout this morning because his legs were toast and he was going to take it easy.  The workout was 2 x 2k, 3 x 1k, and 4 x 400m.  The more I thought about it the less I liked the idea of piling that on top of my legs this week, especially with a hilly 20 mile run looming on Saturday.  And I don't want to embarrass myself on Saturday since SlowJoe will be joining me.

I got to thinking that I have not done any 400's yet this training cycle.  I like them because they are great at getting that quick leg turn over but are so short that they don't cause a huge amount of stress on the legs.  So 400's it was. 

I ran 6 easy with one slow mile and then 7:40s followed by 12 x 400m with 60 second active recoveries on the neighborhood middle school track. 

1 x 400m @ 1:27 to ease into it.

1 x 400m @ 1:24

9 x 400m @ 1:20-1:21

1 x 400m @ 1:16

Then ran 1 mile cool down to the house @ 7:50.

I woke up to rain and decided to sleep in.  Raining a bit at lunch, too.  I figured the trails would be too wet or muddy and I wanted to stay off of pavement today.  Ran the inside track for 6 very easy miles. 

Soggy morning.  It was not raining when I arrived at the annex.  There was a dearth of people there, I can only guess that many are running the marathon tomorrow or were scared away by the forecast.  I met Slow Joe in the parking lot and we went for a quick mile before the long run.  

We then met up with Russ and Mike and headed out.  It did not take long for the rain to start coming down, there was ample lightning to the north, and plenty of large puddles on the trail to attempt to dodge or jump over.  At a certain point I kind of gave up as my feet were pretty much soaked.  

Maybe around mile 6-7 we started hitting some rollers and then on to Mt. Bonnel.  Of course, we made SJ run the stairs up to the top from the parking lot.  I think there are 105 stairs.  Not easy after making the run up the Mt. Bonnel road.  The view at the top makes it all worth it, though.

Now onward down the other side on a very steep decent through another 1.5 miles of rollers, then turn around and back again.  Nothing is as demoralizing as seeing that climb coming up in the distance.  We all survived though and enjoyed the next mile or two of nice down hills, through some rollers on which we came and then back via the trail.  It started raining heavily on the last couple miles, and this is where I pulled out the wild card of the prerun mile and counted it against my 20.  Mike and Russ were not so lucky and continued on.  SJ and I finished the last 2 on a very wet and sloppy trial.

SJ is a super nice guy and a very strong runner.  It was great to meet him.  Hopefully, he enjoyed his time with our group.

9:00 warm up then 8:33, 7:54, 7:53, 7:24, 7:34, 7:34, 7:00, 6:58, 7:15, 7:44, 7:18, 7:10, 7:01, 6:50, 6:50, 6:46, 6:36, 7:19, 6:59.

The hills are paying off, I feel like my legs are getting stronger.