Freethinker ~ Freerunner

Kevin and I ran at 6:30 this morning which is about the usual time for us to meet.  As we started off down the road he told that he put in 2.4 miles before he got to my house.  He is participating in the GU challenge on Strava.com and trying to hit 150 miles by tomorrow.  I would have easily hit the 100 miles needed to win free GU had they not launched the challenge right in the middle of my planned two week break from running.  Kevin is going to end up with 150 miles and will be awarded Roctane instead of peanut butter GU.  

I told him I could tell that he had been putting in more miles than me recently because for the first time in several weeks I felt like I was slightly behind his pace.  I was happy though because I like the challenge.  We ended up averaging 7:43 on the run of 8.53 miles this morning.  

I meant to only run three this morning, but I ended up running longer.  During the run I forgot that I changed up my program from minutes to miles.  I turned around at fifteen minutes instead of one and a half miles. 

I felt pretty good save for a few minor aches and pains from the long run yesterday.  

When I finished my run I put week killer on my yard.  Hopefully this application will take care of the enormous problem with weeds in my back yard.

When I was finishing up on the front my neighbor told me he was going to hire a lawn service this summer, but he wanted to give me the first opportunity to do the job for him.  I told him that I am interested and thanked him for the opportunity.  Now I just need to give him a bid.  

I feel great!  That is worth repeating.  I feel great!  I left the house without liquids on a mission to run six miles.  I pretty easily ran the first one at a 7:30 pace.  I decided that I will reserve my Mid-Week MLR for a more relaxed pace, and that if I am going to run at a moderately fast pace I should do it on Tuesday.  Of-course I will be bringing my fast pace down over the next few months, but for now I'm simply going to focus on building mileage.  

So today I ended up wishing that I had brought liquids.  I did not drink enough water this morning.  In fact I mostly drank coffee, which has never been a great hydrating force for me.  The sun came out after about two miles and I got a little hotter than I imagined I would.  Despite sweating and feeling a little ill prepared on the hydration front, I was able to bust out an average pace of 7:24 per mile.  I got home, downed some Gatorade, and started feeling really good about my run. 

I also tested out a new pair of Sunglasses called Switch.  They are made with magnets built in to the lenses so they can be easily switched out depending on the light conditions.  This is the technically the second time I've worn them.  The first time was in the dark and calm early morning hours.  This was the first during the day.  I was very pleased with their air flow design.  So far they have not fogged on my once.  Today I sweat quite a bit and I was very pleased that no sweat dripped on the lenses.  So far I give them an A+ overall. 

I ran seven this morning at a pretty relaxed pace of 8 minute miles.  I am still concentrating on building mileage, so I'm not going to run very hard for a majority of my runs for the next several weeks.  I do have one speed workout per week scheduled beginning next week and leading up to the Full Moon 5k on May 12th.  My goal is to best my previous PR last year of 19:34.

I probably made a mistake by not fueling  before I left the house.  I had about a half a glass of water that was leftover from the night before.  I figured since I was not going to run fast I would be fine, but my stomach was feeling a little bit empty on the run.  

I ran 3.1 at about 30 to 40 seconds slower than my 5k pace this morning.  I could have run it a little faster but I'm trying not to do too much to soon to fast.  I'll begin running drills this Friday at faster speeds in order to prep for the 5k on May 12th.  

Splits: 

7:12

7:05

6:59

I can see by looking at my splits that I probably should have run a warmup mile or half mile like I usually do before drills.  It actually felt easier to sustain the faster speed towards the end of this workout as it often does.