Every Race is an Adventure!

With school (and driving the kids to the Jr. High) back on, I knew I had to go early to get our normal track workout in so I left at 5:30am instead of 5:45am. After the 1 mile warm up over to the track I decided to do a 3 mile tempo run instead of 1/2 mile intervals. My mile splits were 7:29, 7:53, and and 7:35. Kent showed up during my 3rd mile to start his intervals. I ended up running 4 x 1/2 mile intervals at 3:34, 3:27, 3:24, and 3:25 before I had to head home. Relatively speaking, it was a good workout for me.

Tuesday 2000 N hill run. Avg pace: 9:15/mi 

I'm trying to remember back, but I'm pretty sure this was the Wednesday hill run when Martin and Tim joined. It was Martin's first time with us up the water tank hills, and he had easily out run most of us the day before, so I decided he wasn't going to beat me up the hills on his first try. I pushed hard up the first hill and left Tim and Martin and the others behind and never looked back. I ended up running the hills in 15:36, more than a full minute faster than my previous PR this year. It felt good. On the traditional fast 1/2 mile down 1600 N at the end of the run I pushed again and ran 6:08 pace, another 2010 PR for me I think. I'm definitely feeling a little faster than earlier this year. I think I like it.

My Garmin battery was dead for this run and I'm logging it over a week late. I think this was just a normal Thursday run. I don't remember feeling very fast.

Kent, Wayne and I ran the 20 miles from Trefoil to the lake. We started early. The weather was perfect and we didn't really get any sun until late in the run, and then we were shaded most of the time. We met Larry & Jolene and Kevin near Macy's, about 5 miles from the end. They had started at the lake and were our ride home.

I'm counting all the miles as (slow) marathon pace because they weren't easy. Kent and Wayne kept up a pretty strong pace the whole way and kept me working.

Mile splits: 8:52, 8:38, 8:19, 8:04, 8:18, 8:10, 8:14, 8:12, 8:15, 8:18, 8:23, 8:22, 8:35, 8:38, 8:57, 8:03, 8:39, 8:42, 8:57, 8:53 = 2:49:36 (8:28/mi)

I usually feel good if I can average around 9:00/mi for a 20-miler. I feel pretty good overall about the run, but I didn't like the way the last 2 or 3 miles felt. Wayne dropped down to 7:30/mi or faster, and Kent also easily pulled ahead of me. I struggled. I decided I didn't want any 9:00+ miles so I worked hard just to get 8:57 and 8:53 for the last two. I missed two long runs (YW camp and family vacation) where Kent and Wayne did 18 or more miles. It was noticeable today I think, as I faded hard at around 18 miles.