ShufflingSista

Tested my legs today after the 20 miler Sat., and happy to report they still work! Slept in , so went to gym tonight while dear hubby put kids in bed.  4.2 mi. on treadmill in 45 min, so about 10:42 pace- slow! Oh well...

I'm registered for Peach Days- Sept. 1st, 12K.  Want to run it in about 8:40 pace, but I'm no where near that recently with all my long slow runs.  I think I'll try to get in a few faster tempo runs this week and next week and see if that helps me improve my speed.

This week will be challenging because Heather is still sick, she's had doctor up the antibotics and she's going to take this week off.  And my SG running club gals are tapering down for their 1/2 on Sat. (Good Luck Kendra & Mik'L!!!)

So I'll have to motivate myself this week- it'll be good for me.

Wonderful night time run tonight.  Enjoying mixing it up this week and running at night.  (Well, kind of have to when I'm too lazy to get up early!)  After the kids went to bed I grabbed my IPOD and hit the road.  Didn't take a watch, just looked at my cell phone clock when I left and when I got home- figured pace later and was pleasantly surprised with a 9:47 average pace.  I felt I was going slower than that.  Lower calves still stiff from Sat's long run, but not too bad. Temp. was nice & cool (well, 80ish, that's cool for here!) and it was a very enjoyable run.  The only downer was that my flashlight died around 3.5 mi.  I was thinking of extending the run to 6 mi., but not in the pitch black- my neighborhood has very FEW street lights.

Also walked 1.5 mile w/ hubby & dog today.  Trying to teach that unruly little pup to walk on a leash!

2 mile walk w/ hubby & dog again today.  No excuse for not running.

Mixed feelings about this run today.  I thought that after 2 days of not running I'd feel refreshed and ready to take on the world.  I actually thought I'd have to stop myself from running too long of a distance since I'm running about 17 tomorrow and wanted to save some energy for that run.

Not so.  I left at 9am for my run after the kids went to school.  Took the IPOD, picked a 2.8 mile loop was going to do it 2x.  Started off stiff, legs heavy and stayed that way! I felt worse today than I did a couple days after my 20 miler. I thought that after running 20 min. for sure I'd get into it, but didn't happen.  I finished the loop once, but then just ran another side street to add a little more distance. The highlight of the run was drenching myself in a water fountain at mile 3 towards the end.  Ended up with 3.6 mi. at about 9:30 pace.  I'm happy that my pace is a little faster than my recent runs, but not sure what to make of it.  This pace seems to be between my easy run & tempo run pace- so what do you do with that?!

So I'm kinda frustrated.  Maybe I need to meet up with the SG Running Club next week at one of their track workouts and have someone help me with a tempo run so I can get to know my tempo pace?

Heat was probably a factor.  The thermo said 84 degrees which is not uncommon for me to run in at 6am, so I wasn't worried.  But I think because I was running black asphalt it heated up really fast.  I wonder if I could have run farther if it was cooler..

Great run today and so happy to end this difficult week on this note! Needed a buddy to do a long run with so met up with some girls I didn't know that a mutual friend hooked me up with.  Tammy & Allison were so nice to let me tag along! They were doing 18 and I decided yesterday that I didn't have that in me this week so I met them for the last 11.3.  I loved that they had a little faster pace than my friends I normally run with.  We had 2 water breaks and even with breaks averaged about 10:20.  So I think when we were running it was close to 10 min. miles.  This morning before the run I took IBProfen because my shins are still stiff.  Then I had a little dry cereal & water- would have had 1/2 a banana but was out.  After mile 2 I had 1/2 GU and 1/2 GU at mile 7.  Felt good this run, a bit faster than comfortable pace, I was able to talk & keep up fine, but felt I couldn't slack off at all- which was really a good challenge for me.  The last 3 miles the girls were going on a steady incline back to their cars and I was going to go with them and have them drive me back to my car where I met up w/ them at their mile 7- but the incline was killing me, so I headed back down to my car and actually did a little more distance than planned (I was only planning on a 10 miler) but it was downhill & flat back to my car.  SO- I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't handle the 3 mile incline at end, but I was grateful that I felt so good and enjoyed my pace for the first 7 miles... Overall very good run.  Didn't quite get the mileage in that I wanted this week, but I think my body was demanding a recovery week after recently upping my mileage the last couple weeks. Looking forward to next week.