The Long Run

Went to the Y this morning.  Did 10 minutes on the bike for warm up followed by stretching and ball crunches then got onto a treadmill, did 3.9 miles in 30:40.

I walked outside and saw that it was just starting to rain, so I put my ipod into the car.  The rain was very light and stopped altogether just a few minutes into the run.  I did 11 strides, 25 seconds each with 1 minute easy between them, followed up with an easy run back.  5.14 miles total.

Average pace: 7:45

Went back inside and did some weights: bench press, curls, leg extensions.

When I went outside again to leave the rain was coming down in buckets, looks like I lucked out.

Once I got home, Jenny had me do a few more exercises from one of the running books (but I'm not sure which one).

Ran with Jenny around the neighborhood this morning.  It was easy day for both of us.  Weather was pretty good, hoping to squeeze out some more days of under 75 degrees.  Nothing of interest today.  

Average pace: 8:40

Tomorrow will be a new and different workout 6-8 "cruise interval" pace 1K repeats, plus warm up and cool down.  Should be interesting.

PM - did my Wii Fit yoga routine, almost didn't, glad I did.

Humid with a touch of coolness still left in the air.  Somewhat daunting workout this morning largely because I had never done this sort before.  Plan was to do about 2 mile warm up, then 6-8 1k repeats (6:16-6:24 pace) with 200m recovery between and then 3 X 200m, followed by about another 2 miles recovery (or whatever I needed to get myself back home).

Warmed up with Jenny before she took off on her 3 x 1 mile repeats on her schedule.  I was afraid I would be dragging, so I decided to try and and least do the first one a little bit faster, but hopefully not so fast it would wreck the rest of the workout.  That seemed to work out pretty well.  After the third one I kept on counting in my head, ok, 3 more "mandatory" ones then maybe one more if I could handle it.  The repeats I have done in the past have usually had longer recovery intervals between them, e.g. 800m recovery for 1600m repeats.  But, I guess that the shorter recovery periods is the key to this workout.

Here are the paces for each repeat:

6:13, 6:14, 6:16, 6:20, 6:07, 6:20, 6:17

and then the 3x200: 6:01, 6:01, 5:53

Average pace (overall): 7:43

Then, a little bit over two miles to get myself back home.  There are still more interesting workouts on this plan.

Nice and easy recovery run with Jenny.  We ran together the whole way, no splitting off or pickups or anything special.  Just a nice morning run.

Average pace: 9:02

This morning was my typical Friday morning easy run.  These almost always seem a little easier than the rest of the week.  Shortly after starting the loop around the neighborhood I happened to run into Joe who was also just starting his run, so we ran together.  It was good catching up with him.  Kept the pace pretty even and steady throughout the run

Average pace: 8:28

I'm a little worried about not doing enough hills, so I decided it was time for a trip up to Brooksville to run on the section of Suncoast trail which has some rolling hills, nothing too big but definitely enough to feel.

I was a bit disorganized this morning so I didn't make my goal of getting on the road by 5:30, it was closer to 5:45, which got me there just before 6:30.  One I got out of the truck it kept making this beeping noise like I had left the key in the ignition but I could see the keys were not in so I was thinking the electrical system was just misbehaving.  It was doing this yesterday also when I got to work.  Eventually, I noticed that the lights were in the "On" position rather than the "Auto" position.  Must have happened during the oil change yesterday.  I'm not sure why my battery didn't drain yesterday.  Turned off the lights and got on my way.

I started out really slow but not on purpose, about a half mile in I started to finally wake up my legs and finished the first mile at 9:38, then gradually sped up to about an 8:00 pace as I reached the halfway point. 

Since this was the latest I have ever started at this location, I was able to see more details that I usually miss in the dark.  Nothing too interesting, just different.  A big dog ran out toward me but was fortunately behind a fence.  Saw the usual rabbits and squirrels doing their morning routines.  Ran past a house with a goat in their backyard.  I saw a yellow diamond shaped road sign that had a picture of a bear on it.  I was a bit worried that it was for a bear crossing.  Luckily it was not, although there are supposedly some black bears not too far from this area.

The first other person I saw on the trail was a woman running in the direction toward me by herself, then about ten minutes later saw a guy, maybe they were running together.  Sometimes I don't see anyone running.  Saw a decent number of cyclists.  Looked for alligators in the ponds along the trail but did not see any.  One section of the trail, which passed through a fieldy looking section, had a big flock of dragon flies that I had to run through.  I thought I was going to run into some of them there were so many, fortunately they are probably the nicest insects you would ever want to run through (if you have to run through insects).

For fuel, I had 4 8 oz bottles filled with Accelerade (orange flavor) and I took two PowerBar gels (one chocolate and one strawberry/banana).  I had my iPod with me which I listened to for about 10 minutes early on but it died on me, so mostly no music.  I did get a lot of thinking done but unfortunately have already forgotten most of it.

As I was approaching the 15 mile point, I some how that I had done 16 miles and was looking forward to having only two miles left.  A bit disappointed when I realized I was 3 miles from the end, but got over it quickly.

Finally, I was done and satisfied with a good solid run.   Not everything went perfect, but it was pretty good run overall.

Average pace: 7:57

(1:14 first 9 miles, 1:10 return trip)

I drank a whole bunch of water and a soy chocolate milk.  Chatted with some of the cyclists.  I saw a guy run by with two women.  I sort of recognized the guy, then he said hi to me.  It was Dan F. who I hadn't seen for a while.  Chatted for a couple of minutes before he continued on with his friends, then I headed back home where there was a plate of delicious sourdough blueberry pancakes waiting for me!