Dixie offered to run with me again today. We met up just after 6:00 for a 9 mile run. Temp was 81°, humidity was 84%. We started out slow with 9:22 for the first mile, gradually speeding up to 8:15 for the third mile. We ran from the 7-eleven, up the east lake trail, looped around the high school, with a short water stop there. Came back through some neighborhoods to the lake park in Lansbrook where I refilled my water bottle. As it got lighter, the humidity dropped a little bit and a small breeze picked up, although the temp went up slightly it felt a little more pleasant at the end than at the start. Finished strong with the last mile at 7:35. Average pace: 8:05 Asics Gel - 309 This is going to be a cut back week for me, which mainly means I won't be doing a long run this weekend, want to get 40 miles this week, then next several weeks will climb up in mileage from these past few weeks with my first venture into to 50+ mile range. Also, for the past few weeks, since I've cut back a lot on weights I had been doing pull-ups at home. Jenny read something in a magazine about a technique called "greasing the groove". You start out figuring out what your max number of (whatever you are trying to do, in this case pull-ups). Then for four weeks, mon-fri you do three sets per day, you do the sets at least one hour apart. Mon you do 70% of max, tue 80%, wed 90 %, thu 70% and fri 80%. The article said you could improve 20% in 4 weeks. I started out at 20 pull-ups for my max. This morning I did 30! Jenny also did this but with push-ups and pull-ups. Her push-ups went from 40 to 50 and pull-ups from 4 to 5! Looks like this really works. It seems similar to running in that if you run consistently at a slower pace than what you are capable of, after a while, one day you go to a race and can all of the sudden run a lot faster. Jenny has started a blog also which is at : http://www.jennyruns.blogspot.com She has started running more now that her obstacle course competition has finished, with a 10K time of 54:53 back in March (a PR). She's training for the Disney half marathon in January. |