The Long Run

Somewhat typical Monday morning run.  10.8 miles - 1.5 treadmill, 7.8 outside, 1.5 mile treadmill.

Went to the Y, warmed up on the bike, 2 sets of crunches on the ball, then onto the treadmill for 1.5 miles.  Looked like it was getting warm outside so figured I'd better get going.   Based the route on my favorite 6 mile route with some extra added on.  Did a few fartleks to try and wake up the legs, it seemed to help a little bit.  I used a new water bottle today.  Actually, the bottle itself is a lot like ones that I have but this one came with a strap on it so you don't actually have to grip it with your hand.  It was better than just holding a bottle but not as good as carrying nothing in your hand.  I'll try it again for a longer run and see how it does.

Average pace outside: 7:48

After being outside, cooled down with another 1.5 miles on the treadmill, a few minutes on the arc trainer and finished up with 3 sets of leg extensions.  Inflict workout tomorrow!

Ran by myself, starting out at the Y, just after 5:30.  I wanted to do my Inflict workout in the gym and I potentially had two people to run with.  Run went pretty well.  I felt like I was running at a relaxed pace, and possibly a pace that was faster than average, but the pace turned out to be a little slower than I thought but still in the right ball park - 8:12

While running I came up behind Barb and Regina and said "hi" when I was about 10 feet behind them which gave them a startle.  I must have been running  quietly for them not to hear me, so maybe in addition to a nice easy pace I was running with a good form and not breathing so hard I could be heard from a mile away!

After the run I did my Inflict workout.  This was the first one I did at the gym, it was harder and took longer for a few reasons.  For one thing, I didn't have Jenny there to ask questions on what I should do next.   Also, some of the equipment was in use when I needed it, and there were heavier weights available than what I have at home.  It took me about 50 minutes to complete the workout, which seemed a bit too long to me but at least I got it done!

 Spectacular light show this morning.  Sky above me was clear, but several miles away were some big cumulonimbus looking clouds.  They were lighting up with lightening which didn't seem to reach the ground.  Sometimes you just saw light, other times you could see some pretty spectacular bolts of lightening across the length of the clouds.  It was pretty far away and not getting closer so I figured it was ok to still run.

I hadn't done a tempo run for a while so I thought it was time.  I headed out from my house and ran the first 0.5 miles with Jenny before I split off towards 54 and Starkey blvd while she stayed in the neighborhood on phone duty.

I had trouble getting going at first and actually stopped a couple of times so I could start up again and hopefully shake off the dead legs.  It worked eventually and I started to feel better.  Just over two miles out, I was ready to begin.  I knew the pace would feel hard especially at the beginning.

So, here is what I did:

6:57, 6:48, 6:54, 6:41, 6:37

As I thought so, the first mile felt hard.  The 4th mile didn't feel any harder than the first mile, perhaps a little easier.  The 5th mile was better than the rest, maybe because I was glad to be done.  Not sure why the first mile is always harder than the last mile.

After the tempo portion, I slowed down and gradually picked up the pace as I recovered.  The last mile for the morning was at 7:14 pace, which felt pretty good.

Average pace: 7:35

I received a surprise in the mail today.  It was a medal from the Estes Park Marathon for finishing 3rd place, male age 40-49.  The overall winner was in my age group, so that opened up a spot for another award.  I know some people don't believe in age group awards and some people don't believe in awards due to someone getting bumped up, but I sure do, because the award is sitting on my counter!  It was very nice of the people at the Estes Park Marathon to mail this medal out to me, thank you!

Nice run this morning at Longleaf with Nelson and Keisha.  Overall group was smaller than usual with several out on vacation some place.  Nelson, Keisha, and I ran 6.1 miles together, averaging about an 8:25 pace.  After they split off, I did another out and back to get in a total of 8.3 miles and bump up my overall average pace to 8:15.   I got back just in time as everyone else was packing up and leaving but was able to grab a cup of Regina's famous Brazilian coffee.

Headed home for a quick dip in the pool and then onto the Inflict workout (home version) about 45 minutes.  My innovation of the day was to do the horizontal pullups, which when I was at the Y I had lowered the bar on a squat rack.  Since I don't own a squat rack, I put a broomstick between two chairs for a bar. It was a little bit shaky but it did the trick.  For the squat rows, Jenny suggested using the band slung around the coffee table legs (it's a very sturdy coffee table made out of heavy duty pipes for legs), while holding dumbbells.

 Nice morning for a run with a surprise treat of a rainbow!  7.25 miles @ 7:51 average pace, consisting of first half nice and steady and then a slight speed up in the second half with the last 1.5 miles faster.

16.06 @ 7:24 pace (1:58:55)

Good run this morning in Starkey park with Eric, Mike, and Dan.  Met up at 6:00 and was running by 6:10.  Trying to get out to the turnaround point while the sun is still low.  Temperature was pretty good but the humidity was back up, the air almost looked foggy at first.  I started a little bit ahead of the other guys so I could go a little bit slower for my warmup.  They caught up to me in about a mile, then I ran with them.  Fortunately, we kept the pace pretty easy and didn't start picking it up really until after 4 miles.

Eric turned around at 5 miles and headed back, and Mike turned around at 7 miles.  Dan and I made it to 8 miles then headed back - the sun was still pretty low.  The first mile after the turnaround the pace had picked up a little bit faster than I thought.  We stopped briefly at the water stop before going back into the park to try and cool off a bit, then continued on.  Kept up a pretty good pace to the 12 mile point, grabbed some more cold water then headed off for the final stretch back.  With about three miles left I was starting to feel a little bit tired and felt like slowing down.  With two miles left, Dan said let's run the last two at 7:05.  We were able to do that and a little bit better with the last two at 6:58 and 6:55.  Dan was ahead of me 30-60 seconds for the last mile, hard for me to tell exactly.

I was happy with the run because on Friday night I was not sure how I would hold up for an early morning 16 mile run in the heat/humidity at the end of 60 miles, but it turned out just fine, long run magic I suppose.

Hung out for a bit at social hour before heading home to enjoy some delicious french toast Jenny had made from home made bread she made the day before!