The Long Run

Monday morning split run between the treadmill and outside.  10 minute warm up on the bike then onto the treadmill.   I felt a little achy at first in my left foot but that seemed to loosen up after a couple of miles.  Averaged about 8:05.

 Headed outside, another 4.2 miles at 7:31 average pace.  Looked at my pace after the first mile, then no more looking until the end.  Felt pretty good.   This is my cut back week with just 8 mile runs planned Mon-Sat., although maybe I'll do 10 on Saturday (possible peer pressure).

Ran with Jenny this morning.  She has started her marathon training plan for the Dallas White Rock Lake Marathon.  Today was scheduled to be an easy run but instead she picked something that wasn't on her plan but was from an article in Running Times, 6 X 1Km repeats, with 200m recoveries.   After a warmup of about 1.5 miles we started with the repeats.  I thought the run went great, kept the pace just under or right at 8:00 for each one, then finished with a bit over a 1.5 mile cool down.  Made the run go by quicker.

Average pace: 8:31

Afterward, I did my Inflict workout, which felt good to finish that since I missed both of them last week.

Ran with Jenny again this morning.  Our schedules have lined up just right this week so we can do 3 runs together - we usually just manage one.  We both were up for taking it easy today.  I was a little bit sore from yesterday's Inflict which had me doing quite a bit of squats.  Weather was great.  Got caught in a very light rain towards the end, felt nice.  We ran together for 7 miles.  She headed home and I went out and back for another 1.6 miles.  Picked up the pace a bit for the last section to average 8:27 for the run.

Last run with Jenny for the week.  Today she had 6 miles with 2 1600's that I said I would do with her.  We warmed up for about a mile and a half then got started.  The first one went pretty smoothly.  We were at about 7:35 to 7:40 for most of it until near the end she sped up a little bit and finished the first one in 7:30.  The second one ran into a glitch.  The garmin read a much faster pace than we were going.  When this happens it usually levels back out to the real pace.  It didn't do that this time.  It eventually did get slower but at some points got faster again.  It ended up reading 6:46 for the second mile.  The distance seemed about right.  My guess was that it was maybe 7:00 to 7:15.  Jenny is calling it the mystery mile.

We finished up 6 miles together, then I went on by myself for a bit to put myself over 8.

Had to take the oldest dog to the vet (fortunately not a one way trip), so I did not have time for the Inflict workout. 

I said I would do it tonight, and unlike last week when I made that plan, tonight I actually did it.  I took the leg parts a little bit easier but it was still a pretty good workout.

Woke up at 5:10 this morning when Jenny was getting up.  I was a little tired and slightly sore from last night's Inflict workout along with a few remnants of Tues. Inflict workout. 

Jenny was heading to the hilly neighborhood to meet with her friends and I was sticking close to our neighborhood.  It was a little bit cooler this morning but with a mixture of high humidity and light fog.  Felt pretty good starting out but was a little bit slow the first mile.  Stopped for a gel and some water about 3.5 miles, then my pace picked up a bit.  I had another garmin glitch today with one of my miles reporting "6:06", but was really more like a 7:15.  The rest of the run was uneventful.  Finaly average came in at 7:44 (but this was probably closer to 8:00 due to the wacky mile split but I'll never know for certain).

Always feels great to get the Friday run finished, just one more run for the week which will be a not so long long run of 8-10 miles tomorrow.

I had none of my usual Saturday long run stress that I often have.  I was only going to do 10 miles today - compared to the usual 14-16 that I have been doing for the past 8 weeks and what is coming up in the next 3 weeks.  So, I decided to enjoy it while I could.  I slept until 5:30 instead of the typical 5:00 for Saturday and last night we went out to dinner with Friends.

It was nice and cool at 73° with a little bit of fog.  As a bonus, Joe G. (my fellow Jacksonville and Boston runner) was there for the first time in a while.  When I got to Starkey, I saw some people starting out on their run and said hi to Alex, Andrea and Keisha (only later to find out that Keisha was not there this weekend but was secretly replaced by a new girl named Val who happened to look very similar to Keisha - someone else made that mistake, too).

I headed out with Joe and we took it nice and easy for the first 3 miles and built up to an 8:11 for the 4th mile.  Took a quick stop for water and a gel at the 4 mile stop then continued on picking up the pace.   Stopped briefly at 6 miles after turning around (just quick enough to grab one cup of water, drinking it at race pace).  Joe sent me ahead where I caught up with David and Bob.  Ran with David for 2 miles where he really challenged the pace and according to my Garmin we hit 6:31 and 6:43, although actual pace was a little slower but not terribly (more on that later).  Did the last two miles by myself with Garmin reporting even faster splits of 6:31 and 5:59, and then a brief cool down onto the trail.  The last "4 miles" turned out to be 3.8 miles.  So, with the adjusted pace that averages out to 6:46 for the last 3.8 miles, so I'll stick take that.

I felt pretty fresh maybe due to the consistent 8 milers during the week.

Spent some time at social hour where I introduced myself to Keisha's impostor Val and also said hi to a couple of my neighbors that I have seen around the neighborhood and at races.

Headed back home and later went to Thomas's belt test at Tae Kwon Do where he successfully passed it for his blue belt, a great accomplishment for him!