Seeking a better country...

Ran in new shoes.  I felt punchy after no running since Saturday morning.  Overall pace for the run was 7:12.  Home, 400 E, chase, to reading, and home.  This was an encouraging effort, and it really turned my day around.  It's too bad I waited till 9 pm to run.  The chemicals did me a lot of good.

7:39, 7:10, 7:08, 7:06, 7:03, 6:36.  Oh yeah. This course had some climbs, definitely more uphill than the usual flatness. 

I ran with Ravi.  He said he wanted to go three, but then decided he'd go six with me.  But he got sick, like, puking in the middle of the road, so we went pretty dang slow.  Plus I had him pick the course, and we ran into some farmer fields and crap like that.  This was a very good recovery run, with interesting discussions of evolution and biological theories.  I'd go back to school if it weren't for the tests, tuition, and homework. 

A few lost miles on this run...I didn't push stop/start hard enough, and didn't notice till I was mostly home.  Thanks, mapmyrun.com.  Overall, this run felt all right, but my allergies are terrible right about now.  My eyes feel like they are full of sand, and my nose is dripping snot on the keyboard.

Mile splits I have include 7:22, 7:09 and 7:31.  The missing ones were along the same lines.  Home to parrish, legacy, pages to 400 e. and home. 

This was a weird run.  Me and T ran over to the rec center to watch my nephew in a swim meet.  1.5 miles.  2 miles on the TM.  The remaining miles came on the roundabout way home.  I couldn't run slow enough to stay with T.  It's harder to run at her 10 minute pace than it is to walk.  I'm not sure how beneficial this workout was, with the break for the swim meet, and the laboriously slow pace.

Ran to the temple and back, shoreline trail up, roads down.  The descent was worse than the climb, cuz it's so steep coming down.  The first mile was brutal;  average 9% grade.  Now I have to babysit 4 little ones under 5.  Ugh.  I'm dreading 20 tomorrow.  Maybe I'll cut it to 19.

Ugh.  I just dropped an ugh.  In hindsight, perhaps skipping yesterday's run would have led to a faster outcome today.  That said, I'm satisfied to be finished for the week.  This run was killer.  Winter temps came back; when I started at 6:30 a.m. it was 27 degrees.  I ran to 500 S. and legacy trail, then home for the first 9.6.  Everything was coming in around 8;30 pace.  Then I met my sister, and we headed up to the shoreline trail.  She was a great sport to come with, and those killer ascents were killer.  She kept saying, between gasps, "You shouldn't EVER have your watch on for runs like this."  Getting back to pavement for the last 5 miles was great, unfortunately she was going to be late for her son's swim meet, so we stopped at a friend's and called for a ride for her.  I still had two miles to go.  I got a bit of a boost, and did mile 19 at 7:30 pace.  

Although this run was slow, it probably did a lot for me.  The early start was good practice for race day.  Being tired from the beginning due to last night's effort made it so I was really feeling some stuff toward the end of the run.  I won't be in uncharted territory on race day.  I noticed bonking around mile 14.  It was so cold, I wasn't drinking near as much as my last 20 miler, so I was very depleted.  No gu this time, either.  It was good practice to just keep running.

The slow overall time doesn't bother me.  I had a pit stop at the rec center I left my watch on for, and those trail miles are really challenging.  I think they are doing me a lot of good.  I'd rather do intervals climbing hills than running circles fast.