The Long Run

4 miles on the treadmill this morning.  Felt a bit stiff from the weekend but much better after the run.  Thought about not running then decided to just do 3 which seemed kind of lame, so I did 1 more.  Finished off with some lower body weights.

Another early morning Tuesday run at the Y. It was David, Raj, Randy, Randall and myself. A nice easy first mile, started feeling really good after two miles. Continued easy but a little bit faster for the next two. Started picking up after 4 miles to a 7:35 pace, then picked up the last 1.2 miles, especially after crossing the traffic light to a 6:54 pace. It felt challenging but very controlled and no where near all out.

Overall pace was 7:53 

Slightly warmer this morning at 72°, maybe this is finally the end to the cooler weather.

Just to see where I am at, I attempted a training run from the book "Run Less, Run Faster". It was quite difficult. Goal was for 10-20 minute warmup, 3 * 1600 m at 6:22 each with one minute rest intervals followed by 10 minutes of cool down. First 1600 was at 6:19 (actually going off of a 1 mile lap, but pretty close .01 miles farther), second was 6:24 (possibly a 6:22 1600). Towards the end of the second one I bargained with myself that if I made the time I would just try for under 7:00 on the last 1600. Since I wasn't sure if I actually made the second one in time, I went a little bit faster on the last one than my bargain, with a 6:42. Then I jogged back to the parking lot for my cooldown, about 10 minutes or so.

Went into the gym for about 30 minutes of upper body weights. 

It was just slightly warm, about 71° , and a little bit of smokey haze, just enough where you could see it and smell it.

Ok, looks like I'm not quite ready for this sort of pace, but I'm not that far off either. It was good to see where I'm at as far as speed goes.

I'll just keep putting in the miles and try again later.

David invited us to his house to run instead of the Y.  Got there at 5:45, then started running about 5 minutes later.  3.25 miles up at a fairly easy pace then picked it up a little bit on the way back.  It was David, Dixie, Randy, Keith and myself.  On the way back Dixie started picking it up, I began falling back as I didn't want to go too fast until he said "Mark are you with me?" so I caught back up with him.  Overall pace was 7:48.

 Got back to David's house for some coffee, juice, bagels, and bananas on his front porch.  Karen and Barb were back from their run.  It was a nice change of scenery from the usual routes.

The cooler weather is finally disappearing, but it was still very comfortable weather for running.
 

Since yesterday was faster than planned and was not a recovery day for the fast running on Wednesday I just did 3.5 today on the treadmill.  I also warmed up with 10 minutes on the rowing machine for something slightly different.  30 minutes of lower body weights after the run.

Tomorrow I'll do a good long run since I really enjoy those a lot. 

10 miles of mostly "easy" running this morning.  I arrived at the Y just after 6:30.  It had been raining pretty steadily all night but let up a little bit when it was time to wake up.  I was debating what to do if it was raining too hard.  Maybe an hour on the treadmill or maybe run tomorrow.  When I arrived, Karen and Regina had already started to run, there was a light sprinkle.  Dixie, David, Randall and Bob showed up.  The rain had stopped so we started out.  We made it out about 2.5 miles with no rain, then the rain started, pretty light at first.   At the horse farm Eric had caught up to us after starting at least 5 minutes after us.  The rain got steadily worse.  Instead of heading straight back, Dixie, Eric and I went a slightly longer route back to get in 10 miles.  The last 2 miles were pretty intense with a strong wind (maybe 25-30 mph) and a soaking rain.

I let the time keep running for all of the breaks today.  I did stop at at one point when we stopped and knocked on someone's door because a tree in front of their house was rubbing against a power line, causing a visible ball of electricity, some smoke and blackening the end of the tree limb.  The guy who answered the door thanked us and said "Do you guys do a long run each Saturday?"   So we invited him to join us next week.

 Overall pace was 8:02