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

7 easy pace - out and back from the house.  73 degrees at 5:30 am and humid.  

Met up with the group at the annex.  They were doing circuit and I initially thought about skipping and doing something else.  I am glad I tagged along.  

2.7 miles warm-up followed by circuit:

4 x (15 step ups per leg, 15 lunges per leg, 30 squats) 

200m run to the other side of the track:

3 x (15 push ups, 15 supermans, 15 crunches)

200m run to the other side of the track, repeat.  W

We only had 15 minutes to complete as many as we could, I got to 4 times the first set and only 3 times the second set before we ran out of time.

Then 15 minutes of various plyometric stuff, and then core.

2.7 miles back.  I decided to run 30 seconds hard and 30 seconds slower to the end. I got 15 of these in with burst up into the 5:00's.  Once back I went out for an easy recovery mile out and back. 

8 around the trail at 9 am - mid 70's and sunny during parts, 7:50 AP.

Legs are incredibly sore from yesterday.   Just goes to show you that lots of miles does not strengthen the legs.  I need to start doing more resistance training like I used to do.  I definitely felt stronger during those times.

Nice dip in the springs afterward. 

74 degrees and humid at 5:45 am. I still had significant DOMS from Tuesday's workout. Met up with the group for a 4 mile progressive run on the trail.  The coach told us to start at 10k pace and finish the last mile at 5k pace.  I am not sure what he was on.  The temp alone was going to make that nearly impossible and we were running on the trail which is a 15 second handicap.  

I decided to run more like 1/2 marathon pace effort and progress down from there.  I actually wanted to finish this workout and not die with one mile to go.  Turns out most of the runners either slowed down considerably or quit at mile 3.  This was a good mental test just to push through and finish.

I was happy that I stuck to the intent and finished strong: 6:43, 6:35, 6:25, 6:10.

Ran a cool down mile out and back, doing 4 bursts on strides on the half mile coming back in.

5 easy miles at the gym followed by some rolling, hot tub and steam room.  Not a bad way to start the day.

This is my annual 5k race.  I was really unsure how this would all turn out.  Though I shoved a bit of speed in to my week last week I really have not been training for the distance.  When I was filling out the registration this morning I really thought about not doing it at all.  It was 75 at 7 am, so by race start it was probably 78, super high humidity, and strong winds - enough to straighten out the flags.  In the end I decided why not, I could turn it into a workout.

I met up with a couple buddies from the running club.  We did a couple warm up miles and then some strides.  I was already hot and the heart rate was high.  Not a good sign I thought.  We ended up standing around for a long time, I thought the race started at 7:45 but it was 8:15.  The kid's K was 7:45.  Anyway, I did some more bursts 5 minutes before the race.

Anyway, the gun went off and I was passing people left and right.  5:45 for the first mile - it flew by.  I did not know whether I would blow up or not but I had ideas of greatness in breaking 18:00.  The next mile has a slight hill - 5:52 - definitely going to PR I thought.  The last mile was hard, no doubt.  By this time the heat is catching up with me and my legs are screaming for me to stop.  I lost a few here - 5:58.  I turned the corner and started picking it up a bit and pushing - .1 @ 5:43.  I saw the clock and was really disappointed.  I thought for sure I had a PR but the clock said 18:30 but I was not sure what my chip time would be.  It turned out to only be 4 seconds. 

I finished 22 out of over 936 timed runners and won my AG, which entitled me to an nice wooden fish award and a free meal for 2 at Chuy's.  So all and all I am pretty happy.  On a cooler day I feel like could have PR'd, and with training I will get that elusive sub 18:00.