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

70 degrees and high humidity @ 5:30 am.  7.25 AB miles - overall pace 7:48 that included pretty slow first mile.  Also did 6 x 100m or so strides during the last mile.

Went out lunchtime.  It was already pushing 90 degrees and full sun.  I ran the soft trail loop near the office.  7:42 average pace for 5.25 miles.  When I finished I felt like a heat stroke candidate.  When I took a shower at the office I did not bother to turn the hot water on.  I think I may need to start going to the indoor track at the gym.

Low 70's and humid at 5:00 am.  I ran 6 miles - 1 mile warm up @ 9:20 and then 7:40's.  Circled back home and met up with Kevin, a running buddy who moved close by recently.  We will get together on occasion and run together if we are not going downtown for a group run.  He drove over to my house.  I had to slow my pace back down for a mile or so to let him get warmed up and then we picked it up again.  I took him on my favorite hill route.  I am not sure he wants to run with me again any time soon - hehe.  It is a killer and I looped it so that we got hills going and coming back.  We ran 8 miles and I dropped him off and finished out one more mile close to 7:00 pace for a total of 15 miles.  We hit some good paces.  Overall average was 7:50's and that was with with the slower warm-up miles and the hills.

5:30 am and already 75 degrees and humid.  Ran 7 recovery paced miles @ 8:55.  I see a lot more runners out - seems to me summer is Texas is the time to hibernate.  Maybe people are getting out to start fall marathon training.

The plan is to run 5 more during lunch.   Tomorrow is one of my favorites - 400's.

5 @ lunchtime - hot and humid - clouds for the most part - nice strong breeze.  8:50's.

Yowza - it was warm this morning.  75 degrees at 5:20 am with 100% humidity.  Gross is a good description.  

I parked at Barton Springs pool and ran 2.5 miles to meet up with the group and then we ran 1.5 miles to Austin High track.  There was as small group as the rest of the running group ran fartleks on the trail.

We started with 5 and ended up with 2 of us at the end - the heat and humidity took their toll on the others who either faded or stopped running repeats somewhere along the line. 

The plan was to run 3 sets of 5 400's but we just ran 15 with 60 seconds rest in between and no additional recovery in between sets.  We kept the pace very consistent.  It was a tough workout.  I pushed the last 25m on the last one.  I had to take a break on the bench for a couple minutes before heading back to the car. 

2 miles easy back to the springs.  I had enough time to jump and cool off.  A crawfish bit my heel after I jumped in and was walking back to the stairs.  At first I thought it was a fish, and then a crab because I could feel something that felt like claws.  Another runner who was already out was like "hey, did that crawfish get you, too?"  I guess we were stepping on his house - lol. 

400 splits: 1:24, 1:19, 1:20, 1:20, 1:21, 1:20, 1:19, 1:21, 1:20, 1:20, 1:21, 1:21, 1:20, 1:21, 1:17. (5:21 to 5:09 pace)

I found a great little trail loop near the house.  It consists mostly of hard packed dirt with some sections of soft mulch from the trees as well as some portions of crushed granite.  Perfect for a recovery run and one full loop is one mile.  It was 84 degrees and sunny but there is lots of shady parts and the cool north wind has blown out the humidity.  9:00 pace.

Absolutely gorgeous morning.  60 degrees and no humidity - nice north breeze.  Met up with the group today - lots of runners.  Some of the Boston people are back to running now as well as picking up some new runners getting ready to start fall marathon training.

I started behind the crowds somehow and had to catch up to the faster group which today was the lead group.   I think I caught them by about mile 1.  From the get go I could tell today's run would be fast paced and that is exactly what I wanted.  I was shooting for 12 @ MGP but got in a few more than that.  I figured I would take advantage of the weather while I could.  We ran the 14 mile loop on the town lake trail with a bit of out and back that started around mile 3.  This was great as I could run with the group until mile 12 when I had to break off and run what we call the triangle which adds almost 4 miles with some really nice hills.  Thus I had to run 6 miles alone as everyone else was doing 14 miles.  At about mile 11 Liz just took off - probably around 6:00 pace and dropped everyone else.  2 other guys tried to hang but couldn't and I fell back to keep my pace @ 6:50.  I still have 7 miles to go and was not going to kill myself at this point.

I wanted to stay around 7:00 mile and, as the charts tell me, hit what should be my MGP of around 6:50 pace.  I managed this for quite a few miles and it was not too bad.  I felt pretty relaxed.  I am not sure if this is possible for 26 miles but I am starting to believe. 

All in all a great run.  One disclaimer though is that we stopped briefly every 4 miles or so for water/gatorade.

Splits:  8:42, 7:35, 7:18, 7:25, 7:06, 7:04, 7:24, 7:11, 7:09, 7:04, 6:43, 6:57, 6:59, 6:54, 6:49, 6:57, 7:02, 7:08.