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

Wonderful morning for a run.  I think the starting temp was 50 and the race began at 7 am - so we did not see sunrise until about 7:45 or so - most of the race was in the dark.  No wind - pretty close to perfect conditions.

I woke up at 5:15 and downed 2 scoops of carbopro and 1/2 scoop of powered gatorade mixed in water.  Got my stuff ready and headed out the door.  Met up with some other runners at the Annex around 6 am and went out for a 2.4 mile warm up run. 

15 minutes before the start I took a Gatorade Prime pouch and headed for the start.  We made our way through the crowd to get up front. 

My strategy was to start off in the 6:30s, conserve energy to get through the hills, and then pick up the pace from there.  The hills start around mile 2-3 and end around 4-5 or somewhere in there.  There are a couple of hills after mile 5 and then it flattens out back into town, with some minor inclines along the way, especially the last mile. 

I seem to run races like my training runs - go figure - and that means progressivley. 

I started out with a running buddy and we ran together until mile 6 or so when I started to pull away.  It was good though to keep the first miles in check.  It is hard to hold back when people are passing, but I kept telling myself to stick with the plan and save the energy.

I don't know what happened with mile 2, but I defintely left 12 seconds out there - I think I slowed down too much here - too worried about the hills coming up. 

Coming onto the hills I tried to take them a bit easy and if there was downhill to hit it a bit  faster - I just am not that good on downhills though so I am not sure what I picked up on the downhill parts that we had.  The hills were hard but not too bad - I just kept remembering the hill repeats we do when we get to the top we have to speed up to the end of the street - this came in handy today.  I ran the first 5 miles in 33:xx and thought I was really going have to speed up and run a negative split to make my goal - at the time I thought if I could run 1:05 I would be happy.

My last 2 miles were my best - there were a couple runners from my group that were in front that I had in my sights.  This really helped me drop the bomb on the last 2 miles and was a huge boost to pass both of them along the way.  I turned the corner towards the finish and could see 1:03:43 and ran as fast I could muster to get under 1:04 but alas it was not meant to be - I missed it by 6 seconds.  Still, very happy with the performance given the course and that I had not run it before.  I think next year I will be much better prepared.  The chart said I should be able to run a 10 mile race in 1:03:54 or something - so I have no doubt I could break that on a flatter course.  Looks like after today I will shoot for a 1:23-1:24 at the San Antonio half in 2 weeks.

Overall splits:  6:26, 6:43 (left 10 seconds out there), 6:42 (another slow mile, another 10 seconds), 6:34, 6:32, 6:30 (survived the hills), 6:16 (time to start picking it up!), 6:13, 5:57, 5:58.  Average pace 6:24 for the race.

4.25 miles easy around the trail after the race.

I made the trip downtown so that I could run on the trail.  My legs thanked me for it.  I did the dam loop and added some on for a bit over 12 miles.  First 2 were close to 9:00 miles but then dropped to the low 8:00s and a few 7:30's-7:40's towards the end.  Legs feel pretty good considering the race was just 2 days ago.

Last nice morning for a while, I think.  Temps are supposed to drop significantly over the next couple nights.

Anyway - easy 7.25 in the neighborhood this morning.  Low 8:00's.

OK - so I decided on running some 800's today.  In retrospect probably not the best plan only 4 days after the race, but I felt like my legs were recovered enough - wrong.

The group was going to run a tempo or something like that and I felt like I had just done that on Sunday.  I had emailed out and another runner responded that they would be at the track doing some 800's. That sounded just dandy to me.

A few issues with that plan - I went out to see a band last night - I got home at a respectable time and was in bed by 11 - but just did not sleep well at all.  I probably got 5 hours of sleep.  I am also coming down with something - could be allergies - but not feeling 100%.  It was 42 degrees this morning but there was also a 25-30 MPH gusty wind.  And finally - the other runner never showed at the track so I ended up doing the repeats by myself.

I should have run another 12-13 semi-easy medium long run instead, but oh well, at least I was smart enough to cut this workout short.  By repeat #3 I could tell it was not happening today.  Running a 5:40 pace into a 30mph wind on an exposed track is not any fun.  I could not break 2:50 no matter how hard I tried. My legs were still tired and I didn't have the energy.  Stopped after repeat # 6 and ran 4 easy back to the car @ 7:50 pace. 

4 mile very easy warm up followed by 6 x 800m @ 2:50 - 2:51's with 1:30 rest in between with 4 mile easy back.

6 easy miles on the soft trail at lunchtime.  Going to go for the last 20 mile long run tomorrow with some MGP hopefully.

Nice cool morning - around 44 degrees with no wind.  Today was a 20 mile loop with the first 4-5 miles steady net incline gain, across town and up some more, then over and back down.  

The plan was to run 4 easy, 6 MGP, 4 MGP+20 sec, and finish with 6 MGP.  Well, once I got going I decided to ride it out until my legs couldn't go anymore.  That was around mile 17.  Still feeling a bit of the race from Sunday and with a 1/2 next weekend I decided there was no need to push the end.

I started with the group at 5:30 am and ran with them for about 3 miles and then started to pick it up.  I ran alone the rest of the run.  This is the time of year where people have run their marathon or are going to, or dropped out of one.  The 2 runners that I should have been running with today have both dropped out of CIM, and Lisa is running San Antonio full next week, so that left me to run by myself.  That was OK though - I am going to have to race by myself so it's good practice. :-)  I decided 19.5 was sufficient given the quality.  I felt pretty good with the low 6:50's - high 6:40's - hopefully I can manage a few of those during the marathon.  I need at least a 6:50 average for a sub 3.

Splits:  9:04, 8:16, 7:22, 7:14, 7:07, 7:05, 6:56, 6:57, 6:48, 6:53, 6:48, 6:50, 7:04, 6:54, 6:48, 6:55, 6:57, 7:10, 7:45, .5 @ 7:22. 

Broke 70 for the week - maybe another 70+ next week (including the 1/2 marathon) and then  taper time.