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

My legs felt really good this morning - even after yesterday's 18 mile run.  Hard to stay within recovery pace:  8:47, 7:54, 7:45, 7:55, 7:54, 8:04, 8:08.

2.6 mile warm-up followed by 5 mile MGP (actually running these faster than my BQ pace of 7:38) -first 2.5 miles over hilly course - with  1.4 cool down followed by strides.  MGP miles:  7:29, 7:27, 7:20, 7:05, 7:15.  Next week I will increase another mile to 6 @ MGP.

Nice and easy miles on the trail.  Probably should have kept the mileage a bit lower - might have been a good idea to do a recovery double today.  oh well.

6 miles around the trail in 90 degree heat - tried to keep the pace in check as we have a hard workout tomorrow - overall pace 8:00.  Did some long strides and jumped in barton springs to cool down.  ahhhhh 

Parked at the springs - tried to be there a bit early as I wanted to get in an extra mile before I ran to runtex to meet the group.  I had about 3 extra minutes so not that much time.  I thought it would be tight but hoped that the group would not take off at 5:45 but a bit later.  I ended up 2.6 or so before I got to Runtex and the group had just walked out the door of the annex.  We did another 4 miles easy followed by 3 @ tempo pace.  I ran a 1.6 cool down back to the pool.  Finished with a couple long strides at 5k pace.  I was disappointed in my tempo pace - I am not sure why I found it so hard - it was difficult to keep my heart rate under control - it must have been the heat and humidity.  I feel that I was running stronger a few weeks ago.  Tempo pace: 7:05, 7:09, 6:51.  

Decided to take a day off from running - did a 60 minute spinning class instead at medium effort.

What a difference a week makes - last week's 18 mile run was grueling - today was much better.  Last week's course was much harder though.  This week I started at my house and ran to downtown, getting in some nice stretches of downhills in preparation of Steamtown.  I did hit a couple of good climbers too.  I met up with the group's route at mile 10.  The positive part was that I only stopped at one water stop and that was to refill one of my bottles.  I ran the whole way by myself as well. Carried flasks of Cytomax and it worked very well for me. Overall pace was 8:10 so 30 seconds off my BQ pace.  Splits:  9:13, 8:27, 8:12, 8:21, 8:20, 8:09, 8:26, 8:04, 8:08, 8:11, 8:03, 8:03, 8:08, 7:59, 8:02, 7:56, 8:00, 7:43.  Followed by strides.