The Long Run

I drove to the Y this morning.  I was listening to the news and they were talking about some rocket launch which I had assumed happened some time last night.  As I turned at the stop light I saw in my rear view mirror a long zig-zagging contrail which finally ended in an arcing shape.  The contrail was oddly illuminated in the still dark sky.  Looks like the rocket launch (a Delta 2 carrying a gps satellite) had just happened.  It was quite a sight.

Made it to the Y, warmed up on the bike for 10 minutes, followed by two sets of crunches on the ball.  Ran 1.5 miles at about an 8:30 average pace, then was ready to head outside.

Warm but not too warm out.  Ran 6.5 miles @ 7:35 average pace.  Saw some of the cross country team out running.

Back inside, for another 2 miles on the treadmill with some treadmill style striders thrown in for fun.

Finished with 3 sets of leg extensions.

As I was leaving to go to work, I saw this very strange looking bug outside the front door.  It was about the size of a lizard.

Ran with Jenny this morning around the neighborhood. We started the run about 6:45 which was nice since it was in that narrow window where it is starting to get light out and the air changes from stagnant to breezy, the humidity drops slightly but the sun has not come up yet so it isn't hot.

We kept our splits pretty even throughout the run. Jenny said she felt like she was dragging a bit but the pace wasn't  any slower than what she has been running. At 8 miles, Jenny ended her run. We had averaged about an 8:29 average pace. I did another 1.2 miles slightly faster, bumping up my average pace to 8:21 for the run.

Quick swim in the pool to cool off (the water was actually cool due to last night's rain), then did my Inflict workout "The Anchor" (they all have such ominous sounding names). Went pretty well, took me about 45 minutes.

 First track workout in quite a while.  As is often the case, a little worried about how it would go.  Got to the Y a little after 6:15, and warmed up a little over two miles of easy running.  Stopped inside the Y for a drink of water and received some more comments about the brightness of my shoes.  Grabbed my drink bottle and put on my crocs to run across the field to get over to the track.  This turned out to be a good idea, otherwise my shoes would have gone from bright orange and red to mud color.

Put my running shoes back on and did one easy lap around the track to check it out.  Today's goals were modest, just 2 X 1600 @ 6:17 , with 800m jog between repeats.

  Started the first repeat, felt pretty good and was hitting the laps around 1:30, finished the first one at 6:00.  Second one was at 6:01.  I ran the first one clockwise, and the second one counter clockwise.  The garmin is way off on the paces and even more off when comparing clockwise laps to counter clockwise, but it doesn't matter too much because it's really just a stop watch when running at the track.

As a bonus, I did two 400's to see what I could do.  They were at a faster pace, but not dramatically so, with each one at exactly 1:24.  Then one slow lap around the track.  Crocs back on, across the field, running shoes back on and about another 2.2 miles to get over 9 miles for the morning.  During the last mile I saw I had picked up the pace, so I held it and finished that mile in 6:46, which didn't feel so bad compared to the 400's.

Cooled down even more inside with 5 minutes on the arc trainer and 3 sets of leg extensions before heading home.

But first, took this washed out looking photo with my phone of the view from the Y, looking across the field to the track.

Good run this morning over at Longleaf with the Striders at 5:30.  Ran with David, Alex, Keisha, Nelson and a new guy, John.   It was pretty dark this morning with no moon, but the stars sure were visible.   When we got to the turn around point I decided to put my music on.  My shuffle had been in my pocket and the cord got all tangled up.  I fixed it but it took a while.  When I got going again the group was way ahead of me and I tried to catch up, but didn't quite make it.

Average pace: 8:01

Cut the run a little bit short since Jenny was heading out early.  Did Inflict workout "The Anchor" again.  I skipped the very last set of walking lunge presses because I slightly tweaked my left adductor (but nothing too terrible, just didn't want to strain it more).  When I said I was skipping it, Jenny suggested I do squat presses instead, alright...  :)   Those didn't hurt.

On the way to work, there was a car driving ten miles per hour below the speed limit a couple cars in front of me, it was so annoying.  But this was actually a blessing.  As I was getting near to the major intersection, there is a smaller side street which runs across the street I was on.  A mini van pulled out very quickly to try and get across but did not see the large dump truck.  I thought the van would make it across,  but the truck plowed right into it.  The mini van driver was ok (but very shaken), but some of the passengers did not look good at all.  Several people had gotten out of their cars to help.  I went over to make sure someone had a cellphone to call for help, but mainly stayed out of the way.  Police and fire rescue showed up within minutes.   Once I gave a short statement to the police I went on to work as there wasn't anything else I could have done to help.  If the "annoyingly slow" driver had not slowed me down, I might have been involved in the accident, so slow drivers aren't so bad.  I hope everyone is going to be ok.

Nice, mostly relaxed run this morning.  Woke up at 6:15, got ready and did a loop around the neighborhood on the bike.  Weather was pretty good, someplace in the mid 70's.  Ran a loop around the neighborhood then headed on the t-route over to the golf course area.  Stopped once for water (where I stopped my watch) and another very brief stop where I did not stop my watch.  Picked it up the last couple of miles to a pace in the low 7's.  

Average pace: 7:29

Good solid run today.   Not as relaxed as yesterday's run but still enjoyable.  Back to Starkey Park for 6:00 run.  I was a few minutes late.  Not exactly sure why because I woke up on time, just not quite moving fast enough I suppose.  Since I was a little late, didn't get much of a warm up in.   Started running with Mike, Eric, and Dan.  I had some trouble starting out and the first mile 8:28 pace felt hard at first.  Things got better after that and the running started to feel easier.

Out 8 miles then turned back.  We kept the stops down to a minimum today.  On the return trip, my garmin said I was going really fast, but it was a bit off since it wasn't matching the more advanced garmins, but it was still a pretty good pace (for example, garmin said 6:09 for one of the miles but the other garmin said it was more like 7:00).  Still good, maybe I'll see those number for real some day on a long run.

As we got closer, our group slowly spread out.  I lost sight of Eric.  Could see Dan most of the way but eventually lost sight of him until back at the end.  Almost exactly as I finished, the rain started.  Just a light sprinkle to cool things off.  Hung out for a bit and chatted with the others while sharing snacks and coffee before heading back home.

Average pace: 7:17  (maybe 7:20's due to inaccuracy)

Skipped my usual Sat. afternoon naptime to watch the boys do their Tae Kwon Do class.  They've both made big improvements this summer with all of the extra classes that they did.