Freethinker ~ Freerunner

I ran an easy 10 with Kevin this morning.  8:01 AP. 69 degrees.  94% humidity.  It felt freakishly cool along one low lying area of trail.  I thought if felt more like October than July.  

My first full day of vacation in Branson, MO.  I had a rest or cross train day on the schedule so I decided to go check out the fitness facility on my resort. 

Let's just say I'm glad I workout mostly with calesthenics and light weights.  The fitness center consisted of a treadmill, a bike, and an eliptical trainer.  There was a bench, but there were no free weights.  There were strech bands that I was able to make use of for biceps and shoulder exercises.  Oh, and there was also a Swiss ball.  I was really happy about that because I use mine at home pretty regularly for ball squats and quadriceps. 

I also took today to drive around a little bit.  This is mountain territory.  Technically I'm in the city of Reeds Spring just outside of Branson.  The elevation change out here is absurd.  You literally can't drive more than a few hundred feet without massively, mountainous hills.  Fortunately there is one direction outside my resort property that rolls up and down for about 2 miles before ending up at a loop of highway that is more flat.  Not flat, more flat.  I have a feeling I will be doing the majority of my runs out here. 

7:52 AP.  Tempo Run on the wicked hills in Branson, MO.  I'm not sure if my internet connection at my resort is capable of uploading my Garmin so I may not get my splits until I get back home.  UPDATE:  I was eventually able to upload my data manually to Garmin.  My elevation gain on this run was 984 feet. 

3 warmup miles followed by 4 at lactate threshold pace.  I cooled down with 2.25 miles on the rolling and wild hills.  Fortunately I was able to run a portion of highway that included hills only on my warmup and cool down for the most part.  My lactate threshold miles were on a relatively flat loop, although there was one incline that was pretty rough.

3 warm up at    AP 8:03

Lactate threshold pace splits:  AP 7:29

7:39

7:32

7:24

7:21

2 cool down at     AP 8:21

I was really anxious to see if I could hit my pace goals on the hills on my second day running in Branson, MO.  I not only hit my goals, but I exceeded them by a few seconds per mile on the last half of the run.  I can already feel the soreness coming on though, and I am looking forward to putting the hard easy principle to work tomorrow on my recovery run. 

Temperature 78 degrees.  Humidity 64%.  Elevation gain 472 feet. 

My goal was to hit 8:24 AP on the first half and 7:42 AP on the last half of the run.   

My actual AP: 8:04.  First 6 splits AP: 8:25.  Last 5 splits AP 7:37. 

Recovery run. 78 degrees. 68% humidity on my third day on the rolling hills in Branson, MO.  9:10 AP.  Yeah, I took it real easy this morning.  I wanted to finish this run feeling stronger than before I started it.  I believe I accomplished that goal. 

This was my fourth day running in Branson, MO. This morning I ran a general aerobic run at an 8:21 AP. 72 degrees. 64% humidity.

I felt pretty good and would have run this a little faster had it not been for the rolling hills out here.

5th day running in Branson, MO.  Recovery run.  8:41 AP.  76 degrees. 74% humidity.  I think I'm starting to get used to running these hills that are everywhere.

I definitely felt better this morning than on my recovery run Thursday morning, although that was to be expected as the Thursday run was after two hard days.  Today's run was after two relatively easy days.