Every Race is an Adventure!

It was a little cold and icy out, so I decided to run on a treadmill at the fitness center today. I thought it might be crowded, so I went down a little early.

I found Tom Lee, Kevin White, and Scott Blake already running hard. I changed my clothes and got on one of the older treadmills next to Scott. I wasn't sure what I wanted to run today, so I asked for a suggestion. I thought Scott was kidding when he suggested 8 mph for an hour, but when I realized he was serious I figured why not give it a try?

One of the newer treadmills opened up so I moved over between Tom and Kevin to do my run. Like Scott, they were working hard and were inspiring.

I started out at around 7.5 mph for a little less than half a mile then went to 8 mph. "Da Vinci Code" was playing so that helped distract me, but it was still hard work holding the 7:30/mi pace for 8 miles. After several miles I was sweating and breathing heavily. Since I had started at 7.5 mph, I knew I had to run faster than 8 mph at some point to average 8 mph overall. I pushed to 8.5 mph with a mile to go, 9 mph with 1/2 mile to go, 9.5 mph with 1/4 to go, then 10 mph for the last 1/10 mile.

I finished at around 59:30 and averaged about 8.07 mph (7:26/mi). Tom, Kevin, and Scott had long since showered and gone...but at least I get to blog my success. Thanks for the recommendation, Scott, it was a tough but satisfying workout.

Basketball today. We had 12 (one sub per team) and played for about 1.5 hours. It was great fun. My son Andrew was on fire. I was not, but my basketball conditioning seems to have improved. Now if I can only figure out how to get taller than 5'7". If I could get the additional height in my legs, it might improve my running as well my basketball. :)

The temperature was in the low teens this morning so I ran in the early afternoon in the fitness center. I saw both Cory and Nathan there. Nathan was running but Cory was doing some other exercises. I think he is still nursing PF in his foot.

I ran 4.5 miles at 7:30/mi then slowly increased to 6:30/mi during the last 1/2 mile, plus a little warmup and cooldown.

I ran with Larry this morning. The temperature was very cold (around 14 degrees) and there were little ice crystals floating in the air, reflecting the light from the street lights. We took it easy and only went about four miles, but we had a lot of great conversation.

Basketball again.

I found out Friday night that my wife and I had choir practice at 9:00am on Saturday for our performance on Sunday. I was planning to run with Larry and the guys at 8:00am. I decided to start at 7:30am and put it a few miles before I joined up with them, and then break off early. I ended up going the entire distance with them and being a little late for choir practice.