It's all relative

Rained heavy all morning and we were on the boat all day = no time to run for me.

AM: first real long run back. After missing yesterday I was dreaming of getting on the trail and doing some running all day. Also, with my local running buddies doing some racing this weekend, I was feeling particularly inspired. That being said, I made this more into a progressive run with some twists. I would run each set of 5-mile sessions (4 sets) progressively faster, and then during the last 3.1 (5k), during miles 17 to 20, I would run my only timed goal of a sub-20 5k pace. This was nice since it allowed me to focus on keeping my form and not on making sure the watch said any numbers in particular, as long as I hit my goal after each set. Surprisingly, although it continued to get harder this workout was a ton of fun!

"Workout": 4 x 5miles, progressive, no recovery.

Set 1 (5 miles): 39:56 (hills)

Set 2 (5 miles): 36:45 (hills)

Set 3 (5 miles): 35:19 (flat)

Set 4 (5 miles): 32:13 (flat), with final 5k in 19:36.

Cooldown 0.5 miles

It certainly was a challenge since I'm used to stopping a bit on long runs with a group, but since I was solo in this one, aside from a quick take on my stashed water bottle at mile 10, I didn't stop except for letting a car pass in front of me. It felt good to experience that uncomfortable feeling with my endurance that I regularly get with speed work. A fun variation of this might be splitting it into 5ks which I might try.

AM: trail run

PM: trail run

AM: track workout. Did a warmup on some neighboring trails/streets then got into it. It's amazing to always know there's a track relatively close by wherever you go.

Workout: 16x 400, with 4 items in each set, 200 jog recovery between items and 400 jog recovery between sets. I usually only get 3 sets in, but since it's the same workout I did last week, I had to do something different, right?

Set 1- 1:17, 1:13, 1:12, 1:12

Set 2- 1:13, 1:11, 1:11, 1:13

Set 3- 1:16, 1:14, 1:12, 1:16

Set 4- 1:15, 1:15, 1:14, 1:11

Mile cool-down

Overall, I'm very happy with this. It's notably better than my workout last week and I added a whole set of 4 on top of it. Solo workouts are never easy, but this one met expectations, although, it helps when there is wind, the air is dry, and it's only 80 degrees outside.

AM run on the trails.

PM: what an amazing solo run today. My first time in this town, just decided to map a random preserve and run to it hoping there'd be a trail through the hills/forest up there. Threw on my watch and ran out the door towards where I saw it on the gps. Low and behold, I reached the end of a road after 3 miles and found a place laced with hiking trails. Ups, downs, hard turns, rocks, trees, logs to run over, dry hard packed earth, completely covered by trees, one-person wide, not a single other person seen in the 5.5 miles of trails I ran before deciding I was going to trip on a root from being too tired. What an exuberant, surreal experience. I haven't had miles like that fly by in a long time. The 3 miles mostly downhill back to the waters' edge was just icing.

Not bad for a planned off day. Off day tomorrow maybe...

Busy hiking...