The best pace is a suicide pace

Still not used to the new shoes. Still not recovered from taking a week off. Three mile "tempo" run today. After a mile warm-up, started on a five mile tempo run. But I was way sore from U-hill, and the wind absolutely hated me today. Strong winds basically the whole time, and it would change direction the second I turned. Due to these factors, I sorta gave up at three miles. The pace was mid-high sixes. I used the rest of the course I had planned to cool down, so, two miles of that.

I'm gonna pretend I waited until 10:30 to go running because I wanted to prepare for my Ragnar night leg. Really, I just put it off to the last possible minute. Running in the dark was pretty sick though. And also slightly sketchy. I've been pretty sore the last few runs, so tonight was a slowish 3 mile shakeout. Held 6:45ish. The first mile felt pretty bad, but then my muscles started relaxing during the second mile, and felt almost great when mile 3 started. The rest of the run, two things hurt: my right knee, and my lungs. The lungs are just from taking a week off, so they'll be fine after a few more days of training. The knee, on the other hand, is different. That's what I get for doing u-hill on my first day back, I guess. Icing the knee rn, and elevating it tonight while I sleep. I don't think it's that bad, but I don't want to take any chances. Really hoping it heals by Ragnar

No run today. This is on account of spending the entire day at Lagoon. Walked around a lot though, so I'm counting a sort of guessed mileage for the day. Knee still sore, but I think it'll be fine

Leg five of a Ragnar. This was the choose your own exchange leg, so it was 7.4-8.8 miles. I ended up doing 8.3. This isn't so bad, until you take into account the 1500 foot elevation gain, with only 58 feet lost. It was the worst of times. 7:43 pace, pretty good considering the circumstances. My knee hurt pretty bad, but it was too late to turn back, so I dealt with it.

Leg 18

I was supposed to run the 17th leg here, but Rylie messed up and ran her leg and mine at the same time, so she stole my five mile night leg. Oh well. I ran the next leg, which was supposed to be Jacia's who dropped out, so I saved Christian from running an extra leg. This one was 4.1, and I did it at 6:30 pace, which felt good. Night runs are night funs. Sorry for rhyming. (I'm not really sorry). When I finished, Kyrie had taken an ill-timed bathroom break, so I was left there awkwardly waiting. The guy at the exchange zone was like, "too bad, after you made that effort to sprint in." I was really offended because I hadn't sprinted in. He thought my pace was me showing off, and that I couldn't have held it the whole time, which I did

Leg 29

My last leg. It was flippin' hot, and my knee was the worst it's been all week. Basically it was in keeping with the spirit of Ragnar: horrible. The map said it was 3.6 miles, but my garmin, said it was 4 flat. I feel like the watch was more accurate, so I'm going with that data. I did a 6:30,  two 7:00's, and a 7:30 for a 7:00 average pace. The heat was brutal so I'm cool (pun intended) with these timez. Got in the van, ate some marshmallow mateys and thought about how I was done. At the finish line, I got an injury evaluation . The guy moved my leg around, stretched some stuff, rolled some stuff, massaged some stuff. My knee felt much better after, and he gave me some stretches to do to help recover.