The Long Run

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.
 

Non-running day today.   But, not a day off from exercise.   Got to the gym about 6:45 but ran into a couple of my running friends, stopped and talked for a few minutes.   Did the rowing machine for 10 minutes, the bike for 25 minutes, then did about 20 minutes of lower body weights and some ab work.  I've found that the ab work is very important for me when I am running.  Back in December I kept on blowing it off and ended up having problems which resulted in the need for about 10 sessions of physical therapy.  Don't want to do that again.

Looking forward to the rest of the week of running. 

..second try at this, first one was lost, couldn't seem to find it in the browser cache, oh well that is the first time I've done that.

Met up with Dixie at the  Y this morning at 6:00.  Weather was nice with 77° temp and decent humidity.  Started out at 8:45 pace for the first mile and gradually picked up to about an 8:00 pace by the time we got to 4.7 miles where the water was stashed.  Got going again and did the next few miles at marathon pace.  At about 8 miles we spotted one of the cross country team members who had slowed down a bit.  Dixie yelled at him (in a nice way) to start running again and follow us back, which he did.   As we neared the end of the run I saw that the pace was at 8:00 exactly for the run so I picked up a little bit faster until it clicked over to 7:59.

Did some strides in the grass afterwards - I've never done those before so I just followed along with Dixie.

Glycerin : 45.35

Easy run today at a reasonable pace. Started out with a few slow miles between 8:36 and 8:50. Had one mile in the middle that was a 7:36 pace, and the rest were between 8:05 and 8:15.

Ran with Dixie. We met up at 6:00 at the 7-eleven, got moving finally about 6:15. We ran up to the lake park, then just past it a little bit and reversed the route back.  We did not ran through the high school campus as school has started now, although it was probably still early it might have been ok.

We were making a conscious effort to stay at a comfortable pace which we manged to do pretty well.

Weather could not have been better, start temp was 75° 

Average pace: 8:15

Asics Gel - 318

Easy day run. Ran without the Garmin at a relaxed pace. Calculated how far I went later, turned out to be 4.2 miles in 35:46, or about 8:30 pace.

Slept in late until 6:30. Went to the Y, warmed up inside, then did my run. Back inside, stretched out and did about 20 minutes of weights, some lower body and some upper body. Came home and did a set up 20 pull-ups to hold onto my recent gains.

Glycerin - 49.55 

 Short run for a Saturday but not too short.  Just a little bit over 10 miles at a reasonable pace.  Met up with Joe and Randall at the Y.  We did the horse farm route with a loop through the Grey Oaks neighborhood.   First few miles were kind of slow.  After the turnaround at the horse farm there is a slight downhill where we picked things up a bit faster and kept the momentum for a good part of the way back.   Weather was great and it was nice to run with others.  Hadn't run with Joe for a while - he's the one that got me started running with this group.

At the end of the run I felt like I had a lot left over and that I could have run another 10 miles if I needed to which is good since next Saturday I am going to do just that.

Average pace: 8:05

Glycerin - 59.7