The Long Run

9 miles at an easy pace this morning. Met up with Dixie a little after 6:00 and ran through the Lansbrook neighborhood. I had my new water belt today which I bought yesterday - it's just like the one that I had been borrowing from my wife. I hardly notice wearing it. Dixie had a lot to talk about this morning so we talked the entire run which seemed to make the run go by pretty fast even though we were at a slower pace than usual. I also let the timer run through the water stops. With the slower pace and stops the average pace came out to 8:49. I think the fastest we got up to was about an 8:00 pace. This isn't too bad considering I'm going to be going up in miles this week for my first ever 50 mile week.

Weather was good at about 77°, I'm hoping it holds out and we don't go back to 80° starts.

Asics  Gel - 327

Today was a cross-training day.  I did the stationary bike for 25 minutes and some lower body weights, stretching and ab work.  I ended up on the treadmill to stretch my legs with some fast walking which quickly turned into a jog, then a run, then back to a jog.  I got off before this turned into a running day.

Today was another tempo run. The goal was a bit more ambitious than my last tempo run. I wanted to do 8 miles at a 7:10 pace. I had some doubts as to whether I should do this or not as my right knee has been a little bit bothersome recently. When things are bothersome they either get better or it turns into a pain of some sort. I'm trying to stay away from the pain route. So, I figured I would run until there was any hint of a problem.

Warmed up inside on the arc trainer for a bit then headed outside. Ran about 1.6 miles at an easy pace, took a power bar gel then started off on the tempo.

First mile felt good and came in right around 7:00, miles 2 and 3 were also pretty good. I ran past the cross country team and said hi to the coach. At the end of Wyndtree I turned around and then ran past one of my running friends and said hi to her. Mile 4 was harder. It felt like I was putting out the same effort but my pace was slowing. I picked things up and finished that mile at 7:10. Now I thought about my knee, it still wasn't hurting which was good. I also thought that running just over 28 minutes at a tempo pace counts for something and it might be a good idea to come out ahead and slow down before my knee hurt at all. So, mile 5 was not run at a tempo pace but more of a regular pace (I'll have to check later what it was). I drank some accelerade which probably helped - I was carrying my new water belt which might be part of the reason for the need for extra effort in today's run. For mile 6 my pace had naturally picked back up to about a 7:30 pace. By mile 7, I was feeling good again and finished that mile at about 7:00.

I slowed down then as there was just a little over a mile left to get in 10 miles which was my goal for total mileage for today. Backed down to about an 8:00 pace. There was one road to cross with a traffic light which was green for me if I hurried, so I picked up the pace to make the light. Momentum carried me back to close to the parking lot, finally slowed down with a little bit left to go for a cool down.

The one big boost about today's run is that the average pace for the 10.2 miles was 7:34.

I had to keep moving as I had a dentist appointment which I could just barely make if I took a very quick shower.

Gycerin - 69.7 

Today's run felt refreshingly good for some reason. It wasn't my fastest or longest run. There wasn't too much remarkable about it which is possibly what made it feel good. I had run into one of my running friends yesterday who said he would probably be running this morning at 5:30. However, last night I made the decision to sleep in an extra 45 minutes since it was just a "probably" for the others.

I showed up at 6:30 and 3 of my running friends had just finished their run, oh well. I didn't have high hopes for my run today, just finish 8 miles at a reasonable pace. I set out and right away I noticed that my legs felt "fresh" which I was not expecting since I ran hard yesterday. So, I continued on. First mile was slow and easy, but not too slow. For a change I set the Garmin lap distance on 0.25 instead of 1 mile just to try it out. Maybe this helped as I did not obsess about my mile pace. After about 1.5 miles, the 0.25's were pretty much between 2:00 and 2:03. Eventually the run was over. My average pace was 8:13 which was pretty much exactly what I wanted for today's run. I stopped very briefly twice, once to drop off the accelerade and once to pick it up.

Asics gel - 335 

Various cross training and a little bit on the treadmill today.  Did 15 minutes on the elliptical, 10 minutes on the bike, some upper body weights and finished up with 2 easy miles on the treadmill.

Big run tomorrow! 

Today's run went pretty well for a 20 mile run. I was ready to start running just after 6:00. I was supposed to meet up with someone but he had said that if he's not there by 6:00 then start without him, so I did, which was good since he decided not to show up. This is understandable since there was some thunder but it seemed to be far enough away. Temp and humidity were not too bad, not ideal for running but certainly tolerable.

Started out at a pretty easy pace, 8:45 - 9:15 for the first few miles. My garmin was still on 0.25's for the splits. I decided to leave it that way for a while. The first few miles were not difficult. This is nice when that happens because those are oftentimes very difficult.

I stopped at the lake park for some water and powerade gel, then continued on towards the high school. Drank the accelerade I was carrying on my belt and refilled with water at the high school. At about mile 8 I was feeling pretty good. I did two loops through the neighborhood at the corner of east lake and keystone. There are a couple small hills in there, not too tough but a little bit of variety to break up the flat monotony. After this I was on my way back. I did a few miles at marathon pace.

I was running low on water so I looped through lake park on the way back, drank some water and refilled my bottles. After I left there, the Garmin said I had done 16.02, less then 4 miles left! Felt really good about that and did the next mile at marathon pace. I slowed down a little bit for the next mile as my average pace was right where I wanted it to be. But the next mile I felt it was getting harder to keep my pace, even my slower pace. I didn't want to slow down too much. Finally just one mile left to go. I wanted the run to be over at this point. I had to go 0.5 miles past where I was parked - which is tough psychologically when you have to loop past the "finish line" and then come back. I finished the last mile at 7:58. I might have been able to go faster - although it would have been very hard - but there was not much point to doing that.

Average pace was 8:13

I ran into a few of the other runners who were doing long runs and had some gatorade, grapes, and a soy joy bar. Legs felt kind of tight but not bad. Knees did not hurt during the run. I got home, stepped the wrong way and felt some pain in my right knee. Took a quick ice bath - although there wasn't that much ice. Then I got into the pool for a bit to loosen up. Iced the knee and took some advil, feels ok now.

Glycerin - 89.7