Positive Running

Recovery day.

Ran 7.2 miles on the treadmill at lunch, which I almost never do.  But I had trouble sleeping last night so I skipped running this morning.  Plus, I knew it would be a hot morning with the temperature at 84 degrees at 7:10 a.m. this morning.  

Feeling good that I was able tor run 7.2 miles at a 1% incline in 52 min 20 secs or about 7:19 per mile.  Ran a couple of miles under 7 min per mile.  I had to cut the miles short due to lack of time, but felt like I could have maintained a 7:19 pace on the treadmill for at least 10 miles.  Looking forward to cooler weather.

Ran 15 slow miles in 88 to 90 degrees on a hot Arkansas morning.  Averaged 8:36 per mile, so the run took me 129 minutes. When I reached the trail north of the Arkansas River, I ran half the distance to the Main Street Bridge, turned around and ran to the Big Dam Bridge.  I ran pretty hard yesterday on the treadmill, so I was just trying to get in some miles this morning.  The sky was mostly overcast without a strong sun, so the heat index was about the same as the temperature.  I drank about 50 ounces of Powerade and water, but felt good and not overheated at all.

Got a good night of sleep.  Recovery day - no work out.  Our gym doesn't have a hip abduction machine, so I am looking to learn about hip abduction exercises.

Ran 13 miles with Josh north of the Arkansas River this morning.  Josh is an outstanding ultra-marathon runner, so it was good to run some pavement with him.  We ran the first half with the following times.  Mile 1: 7:02; Mile 2 7:18; Mile 3: 7:32; Mile 4: 7:42; Mile 5: 8:01; Mile 6: 7:48.  Ran the second 6.5 miles with an average time of 8:01 per mile.  Overall pace: 7:51 per mile.  I feel great and will probably run some more this afternoon or this evening.

Ran this morning instead of running last night.  This was a slow easy run north of river just to add some miles.  Started at 6:30 a.m., which is later than usual, so it was fairly warm. 

Ran 13.5 slow miles with Josh and Joe from Two Rivers Bridge to the Riverview Skate Park and back.  It was good to run with Josh and Joe.  Hadn't run with Joe since we ran the Full Moon 25K in early July.  Compared to Joe's running times last year, his 8:58 per mile pace for this morning was outstanding.  When we returned to Two Rivers, Joe and Josh went to Panera Bread for breakfast.  

I continued and ran the 7-mile loop (6.85 miles) at Two Rivers Park at a 8:17 per mile pace, not including two water filling stops.  What made that pace good was that the trail between the bridge and the loop was very crowded with walkers, a few runners and a lot of bicyclists.  But most people were confining their activities to the shaded trail between the bridge and the loop.  Hence, once I reached the loop, due to the hot weather and lack of shade on the loop, there were very few runners, walkers or bicyclists on the loop.  It was a good run on pavement.  , I ran by Joel P twice during the two legs of the run this morning.  Joel looks like he's training pretty hard.  When I returned to the parking lot, I talked with my buddy Alex who had just finished running for 17 miles.  AT the parking lot, one of the bicyclists commented that he saw me getting water and then running pretty fast around the loop.  He saw that I was out of water as I reached the parking lot and gave me an ice-cold bottle of water.  That was nice.