What ever it takes!

Run out Big Goose with Bradin again this morning.  Slow going out and then I tried to pick it up a bit coming back.  I've really gotten slow, I need to figure out where my speed went. 

5 miles of a somewhat tempo run.  Now off to go camping in Red Lodge Montana.

11.5 in 1:23:15  7:14 avg.

12 miles, 6 out and back along the main highway into Red Lodge Montana, pretty hot here, I thought we were suppose to be in the mountains but it was 70 degrees at 5:30 am. 

I was running along and the sun came out and I wished I would have brought sunglasses with me.  Not more than a minute after thinking that I looked down and there was a brand new pair of sun glasses laying on the side of the road.  I think tomorrow I'll wish for a big bag of money.

I've decided that I'm not recovering properly from my 12 mile runs so this morning I went out planning to take it really easy. Started running down the main highway away from Redlodge.  After about 1 mile I decided I really didn't like running down the side of the highway and wanted to find a new route, right then I saw a dirt road with a sign that said 3 miles "that way" to some ranch.. I thought perfect that will give me a total of 8 out and back so I followed that road.  Turned out to be an excellent choice, the most absolutely perfect secluded dirt road you could imagine, open fields, a beautiful sunrise and perfect temperatures.  It actually reminded me of running in Switzerland,  very, very slow pace but I really enjoyed every minute of my run.

8 mile in 1:08  ~8:30 avg pace.

We drove from Redlodge Montana down to Britt's Grandma's house in Cowley Wyoming yesterday.  Spent the day visiting Grandparents, fun fun..  We (Britt) wanted to get an early start out of town this morning so we could get back home.  I wanted to do 10 miles this morning but for some reason it didn't get light until about 5:10 and I really didn't know where I was going and didn't want to run in the dark.  I just started running out some dirt road, almost all the roads in Cowley are dirt, had no idea where the road went, how far it went but it was a great road, kind of rolling hills the whole way, on a nicely graded dirt road.  Ran towards the sunrise for 30 minutes which came to 4.25 miles then turned around and went back for a total of 8.5.  Still pretty easy pace today but not as slow as yesterday, tomorrow I think I'm going to do some old fashion treadmill running to see if I'm as out of shape as I think I am or if the unfamiliar running conditions I've been running the past 3 weeks have something to do with it.

When I got back I asked Britt's Uncle how far that road went, he told me it would have taken me all the way to Billings.  So like 50 miles, humm, Wyoming has some great long run locations.  I can't find anything like that around here, long straight rollers with absolutely 0 cars for 50 miles, maybe I need to move to Wyoming.

Glad to be home, I haven't slept in my own bed in 4 weeks.

8.5 miles in 1:03  7:27 avg pace.

The past 4 weeks I have pretty much been living the runners dream, running on the beach in Miami, around Central Park and along the Hudson River in New York and then down endless country dirt roads in Montana.  Yet somehow getting on the ol' front row 3rd treadmill from the right at Lifetime this morning was really quite enjoyable,  I have literally put thousands of miles on that one treadmill and somehow when I get on it my body just knows it's time to get down to business and run.  No distractions, no cars, no people in the way, it's all about the numbers.

Very pleased with my workout this morning, I just wanted to do my bread and butter run, 10 mile progressive run and evaluate where my fitness was.  Since I've pretty much ran a completely different route and terrain the last month I never really had a good base to go off of and evaluate my fitness.  Felt good the entire run, heart rate never did get away from me and my legs held it together pretty good.   I think my cardio fitness is in decent shape, I just need to start getting some longer runs in and get my legs back.  Speed seemed OK,  I'm sure that is something that will gradually just come back with the miles.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace		Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:25	7:25		135	166
2	14:32	7:07		139	142
3	21:29	6:57		143	146
4	28:18	6:49		147	149
5	34:58	6:40		150	151
6	41:28	6:30		153	155
7	47:50	6:22		155	157
8	54:05	6:15		155	157
9	59:51	5:46		159	164
10	1:06:49	6:58		148	154
Total	1:06:54	6:39		148	164

Very happy with today's run.  Met Ryan at Maverik, first time we've ran together in 7 weeks.  I really needed that, we seem to be able to push each other at exactly the right times, and seem to be at the same level all the time.  He then turns around and kicks my butt at every race though, so that must mean he's just taking it easy on me on our training runs.

I was thinking we'd be doing well just to average 7:30 pace for the 18 miles today, so was really happy with how well I held up for my first long run in months. Hip felt good, legs are a bit sore but that's to be expected after an 18 miler.  We started out slower and progressively sped up over the entire run.  Probably averaged under 7:00 pace for the last 6.

18 miles in 2:09:21  7:11 avg pace.

68 miles for the week, first time I've been on the first mileage board page in a long long time.