dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

No running today (again).  I was planning on running, but I spent all morning studying for a final, and I spent all afternoon working on a final project for another class.  I didn't necessarily think that not running was a bad thing, so I just didn't run at all.

I am finally going to start getting more back into the swing of things now that I am feeling a little better.  My left hamstrings have actually started to hurt a little and feel pretty tight just in the last day or two, but otherwise I am feeling good.  The hamstring issues seemed to go away as I was running today, so no worries there.  My right calf did start to feel kind of tight towards the end of the run, so I am glad that I only ran 6 miles.  The run was much faster than I was planning, and I finished 6 miles in 41:41.

I ran on the treadmill today so that I could bail if anything started to hurt at all.  It ended up that I felt fine, so I ran for as long as the treadmill will let me run before it stops automatically (1:05).  I set the treadmill to a "cross country" setting, so the grade changed between 0% and 7% during the run.  I spent most of the run at 8mph (7:30 pace), but sped up to 10.6mph (5:39 pace) for a while (I will estimate that it was about 1 mile, but I am not sure) near the end just to see what running faster felt like.  Total distance was 8.8 miles.

Easy run today, but I really cruised in comparison to what is normal for me.  1:08:56 for 10 miles.  Finally starting to feel more normal again, although my left hamstring is still bothering me a little.

I tried out the new tempo loop that I mapped out on the course tool recently.  Course loops around the Galleria Mall here in Henderson, and based on the map was right at 1.25 miles.  I figured it was worth a shot trying it out as it would be easy to run long tempos here with decent feedback on the pace.  I figured out approximate locations for quarter markers and then timed them as I was running.  The markers were not too far off, but they were definitely not accurate.  However, I am pretty sure that the overall distance is very close to what the course tool says.  Another bonus is that since the course runs around the mall there are bathrooms just inside that I can use (no more bushes for me!).  The course itself rolls a fair amount, with downhill during the first quarter, uphill during the last quarter, and rolling in the middle.  I don't think it will be a particularly fast loop, but I don't think it will be particularly slow either.

For my run today I ran to the mall, ran 5 miles on the tempo loop (last loop in 6:27, 5:09 pace, HR max 183), after which I ran to the high school just to make sure that when the effort was equal I was running the same speed on the track that I was running around the mall.  After that I ran home.  I was originally going to run 10 miles, but after I got to the track I realized that I was a little shorter than I had originally planned (I thought that the mall was farther away from my house than it ended up being) and I just decided to call it good at 9 miles.  I am not going to worry too much about daily mileage totals for another week or so and it was only a mile short, so I figured it was good enough (plus it was close to 90 degrees outside... that was a big part of the decision to be honest).  Total time was rather quick, 1:00:45 for 9 miles as I was really cruising early on (subconsciously I think I was trying to impress all the people driving by, so I sped up), plus I ran the last mall loop pretty fast.

Today was my first "long" run since the marathon.  It wasn't my standard 20 miles, but it was good to get out for a longer run.  It was hot out this morning (in the 80's) and I decided not to push the pace at all during the run.  I kept the pace just a little under 8:00 pace for the first half (59:15 for 7.5 miles), but on the downhill second half I sped up quite a bit, holding HR around 160 for a while to see how fast I would go at that HR.  HR of 160 gave me mile splits of 6:14, 6:32, 6:35.  My body was not reacting well to the heat and the subsequent dehydration, which explains the slowdown.  I will need to do something like this again when it is not as hot out to see how fast I go with a HR of 160.  Total time for 15 miles was 1:51:25.