Positive Running

Ran 7 miles with Mark at Two Rivers Park averaging 8:00 per mile for the run.  Mark is a very strong medium-long distance runner, but we are both recovering from our 5k yesterday and planning to run tomorrow.  Mark and I are fairly even in our running abilities, with Mark faster (about 20 seconds per mile in a HM) than me and my long-run endurance is stronger than Mark's.  We also saw James T, and talked about his growing up in the northern suburbs of Detroit, the great Arab restaurants in those suburbs, and his commuting between Little Rock and Wilmington, DE.  Overall, a good recovery run at a marathon pace.

Met some ultra running friends at 5:00 a.m., drove about 1.5 hours to the base of Smith Mountain.  Met up with at least 40 other runners and ran the second leg of Heart of the Traveller -- a 24 mile combination dirt road and trail run from the base of Smith Mtn to the near the top with approximately 2,000 vertical feet of uphill running.  Ran the 24 miles in 4 hours 20 minutes, and finished 5th among the all the runners.  Saw a lot of great people involved in the AT 100 who I don't visit with enough.  It was warm in the morning and hot in the mid-morning, but I kept hydrated and felt good after the run.  I very much enjoyed the run and am looking forward to pacing George P for the last 33 miles of the AT 100.

Rest day.  My back is sore due to carrying the hydration pack yesterday.  I need to look into changing the way I wear my Camelbak.

Another rest day.  My back feels much better but I'm still a little stiff.

Ran 8 miles in The Woodlands with Mike and Pam.  It was a warm and muggy morning.  I ran miles 3, 4 and 5 at an average pace of 7:23 per mile.  Overall, Mike ran the 8 miles in 64 minutes and I finished about 30 seconds behind him.  This was my last hard run before the Philly Rock 'n Roll HM, so the rest of my runs for the next week will be easy.

Rest day.  Beginning mini-taper for the Philly HM. 

On a cool 68 degree morning (coolest morning in over a month), ran with Joe C, Josh B and SuperDave (our blind running buddy) around the Two Rivers loop and over the Big Dam Bridge and back.  It was a nice slow recovery run with the first 6 miles at about 9:10 per mile and the second 6 miles (including the bridge/hill) at 8:35 per mile.  Hence, from Joe's perspective, we ran a solid negative split.  Josh and I ran a 2 min fartlek at a 6:20 pace to stretch some muscles after the first 6 miles, and I ran another 1 minute fartlek after 11 miles at a 6:50 pace to stretch some more.