Of Mice and Marathons

South Side loop - 10 miles, averaged 8:18. Did some strides.

AM: North Side - 6 miles, averaged 8:36. High dew point is making things a wee bit uncomfortable. Temps aren't brutal, but the running is sloggy.

PM: Columbian Park Zoo - 4.25 miles, averaged 8:14

9th Street to the Heritage Trail beyond Davis Ferry (should be called Davis Beach now) out and back - 13 miles, averaged 9:13 (~2 hours!). 91 with 50% or so humidity. Mostly tree covered. Decided to bring a little water (good thinking it turns out). The spring floods have left a good portion of the trail covered beach sand, which makes the trail a bit more challenging.  

North Side - 7 miles, averaged 8:17 w/ 2 x Riley Strides @ 4:31 pace, 4:26 pace. 91 degrees, but fairly dry and quite pleasant really with occasion breaks of clouds. 

Columbian Park Zoo - 6.75 miles, averaged 8:51.

Ran to the zoo and checked to make sure the mile markers would be up for Saturday. Ran a bit of the course, then I got hot, so I did some mini loops in the park. Did some race effort pickups on the way home. Pretty blah.

North Side - 5 easy, then 4 x 240m leg tuners (the more expensive Garmin 610 can only go in .5 increments), averaged about 5:41 on those. Felt pretty relaxed, but it was warm.

AM: Zoo Run 5k. 75 degrees and 86% humidity. Not comfy, but the sun stayed hidden. Warmup up 2.5 miles, with about a quarter to a third @ MPish, which was plenty. I was already sweaty.

Lined up, and a mother was telling her 6- or 7-year-old to be careful. I was a bit worried about him going around the first corner, so I watched out for him a bit. The faster folks were breaking away in the first quarter mile, but I could still see them most of the race. I didn't feel like the pace was fast enough, so I started picking it up through the zoo into the first slight downhill, splitting Mile 1: 5:44. Hit the 3rd turn going onto 31st street, heading up Wallace, which parallels the the last ~half mile of mile 2. I passed maybe 2-3 people during mile 2. Right on Park next to the zoo. Fellah in front of me was grabbing water and dumping it over his head. Down Rugar (again, similar profile going slightly downhill). I may have passed someone here, but I can't remember. Mile 2: 5:48. Effort felt high, but somehow my breathing wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Back up one side street and I sat behind two guys (turns out one was 18, and I feel old being 10 years older). I tried to get by them but they were racing each other and I was 2-3 seconds behind and couldn't get much on them (I'm guessing I was running low 5-minute range). I saw the clock ticking 17:42 and knew I was under so I may have let up a bit, but re-kicked when I saw the clock ticking into the 17:50s. I had 17:53 on my Timex (Garmin-Free Racing!), which I think was gun time as I was a bit back from the mat and took a second to stop the watch. I missed mile 3, but at that point it's silly to worry about the split button: Mile 3 + .1: 6:22 (5:47 average).

Pleased with the effort in the humidity today. Started to pour about 3 minutes after I was done, so I did 2.25 mile cool down in the pouring rain. It was beautiful. Wanted to get 10 on the morning, but the lightning was pretty scary :-)

PM: North Side - 6.25 miles, averaged 8:31. My legs just turned 2000 miles for the year. Last year I hit that mark on October 18th, so I am 3 months ahead.