Step by step, mile by mile

AM - 8 on hilly backroads, 6:30 pace. easy. stormed hard this morning so even though i pushed the run back a couple hours it was very nice out.

PM - 5 miles on the rail trail, 5:50 pace. my first day in paris two weeks ago i did 6 on this trail at 5:56 pace and it about killed me, so doing this one at 4pm instead of 6am and still having it be way easier was definitely a mental boon. happy i finally got out for a second run here, it's hard to commit to get out the door when you know it'll be heat death

AM - 8 on hilly backroads, 6:26 pace. easy again, i was a little tight from the fast second run yesterday. otherwise good stuff; i might hit 100 this week if i can be consistent with the doubles. i don't even wanna know how long it's been since my last triple-digit week

PM - 5 on rail trail, 5:56 pace. felt a good bit hotter than yesterday; i think if it weren't for that 5:50's would be an absolute breeze

AM - 8 miles on hilly backroads, 6:25 pace. could have been a few seconds faster, but my right calf was having a little on-again, off-again tightness. i haven't ran a step on grass in 3 weeks, my legs hate it. just 8 more days, boys

PM - 5 on rail trail. running at the hottest point of the day finally caught up to me and i got my ass kicked, badly. got a little over 3.5 at 6:01 pace then just died out. pretty sure running when it's this bad out is more wear on my body than any aerobic gains. i'd love to run at like 7pm when it's cooler but the evening is the only time all of my family is home and i'd feel guilty skipping out on that to run. not sure what i'll do for the next week, might not hit 100 after all

AM - off. back was extremely sore waking up. id normally shoulder all the blame on running on the asphalt rail trail, but considering the two runs before did nothing it was probably a combination of going too hard in the heat and dying, and it being on a hard surface

PM - 5 on hilly backroads, 6:14 pace. considering i had no shade and it was high 90's and humid, i'd call this a better effort than the 5 at 5:50 pace a few days back. it was brutal. back was still very sore but i managed

AM - 8 on hilly backroads, 6:19 pace. absurdly humid, was sure i'd be reeling from it and the run would be a total slog, but i surprised myself. probably cutting out the PM run until i get back to bama then hitting full mileage, i'm excited for it. hopefully the humidity isn't too bad in T-town and fall comes early this year for us.

AM - 8 miles on hilly backroads, 6:04 pace. felt like absolute garbage going into it, but after mile 3 just felt like i shifted gears without even doing anything. ran up the ordinarily killer hills like they were speedbumps. not gonna play the conversion game but on a faster course in fairer weather, this would have been really fast.

PM - 5 miles on hilly backroads, 5:58 pace. was overcast and drizzling at the start, but basically the second i hit the turnaround it stopped and the sun came out and the rest of the run it felt like i was running in an oven. managed to power through it with a 5:41 last mile to get the pace under 6

AM - 8 on hilly backroads, 5:58 pace. extremely humid, shocker. even for how humid it's been, this was something special. so ready to be back in bama, although looking at the 10-day forecast looks like there's a lot of rain on the horizon. again, shocker.

averaged 6:12 pace for the 73 miles and still felt like i mailed it in pretty hard this week. good mental boon with starting workouts up in a couple weeks