Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

7:55 pace, last couple miles ended up being MP.

This week I'm moving my runs around a bit - long run will be 20 miles, but take place on Wednesday.  This is to accomodate the Disney half marathon satellite race taking place on Saturday.  Should be kinda cool, it's taking place at the same time at the race in the states and will have a video link between the starting lines.  The bad news is that makes it a 2pm start here, which is pretty much the worst possible time for me and my night-shift schedule.  Gonna just suck it up though, and do it.  I'm going to pace an Army buddy as he tries to PR.  He wants a 1:45 but will be happy with 1:50.

Felt pretty good on this run.  No specific workout really, just sped up a bunch on the way home.  Averaged 7:59 for the first 4, then 7:26, 7:13, 6:59, 6:09.  I don't have a mile PR, but I'm quite sure that last mile would qualify as the fastest mile I've ever run.  Didn't really intend to do that but the speed felt good and smooth, and wasn't knocking me out like it should have, so I let 'er rip the last half mile.

AP was 7:27 for the run.

8:20 pace.

Why did I name these shoes "new" blue asics?  Not a lot of foresight.

I saved the best 20-miler for last, I guess.  AP 7:45.  Yeah, marathon goal pace for a 20-miler.  Who does that?  Probably kinda dumb, but good for the confidence anyway.  Here are the splits...

First 10 -- AP 8:02 -- 8:12, 8:10, 8:05, 8:00, 8:06, 8:03, 8:04, 7:56, 7:46, 7:55

Last 10 -- AP 7:29 -- 7:46, 7:40, 7:40, 7:52, 7:44, 7:39, 7:23, 7:15, 7:01, 6:48

My last 13.1 was a sub-1:40, which PR's me for the 3rd time in a training run.  I just kinda ran whatever I felt like doing today and ended up getting a nice progressive run out of it.  I also caused the runner's knee to flare up a bit, but I think it's pretty manageable.  Hopefully I can still pace my friend in the HM this Saturday, and hopefully he's not a lot faster than he lets on.  Would it be bad if I couldn't keep up with him?  I'm hoping a day off tomorrow and a short, slow run Friday recovers me enough.

If everything stays on schedule, I have basically 1 more week of training in this country.

7:56 avg.

The race tomorrow should finally put me over 60 for a single week.  One day, I hope me and High Mileage will be best friends but we've had a rocky relationship so far; if we don't take it slow, someone gets hurt (me).

8:04 AP.  Ran the simultaneous Disney half from Iraq with my friend today.  He did really well, clocking just under a 1:46 for 13.1, but the course was quite a bit long; we still finished the 13.5+ miles in 1:49.  We were under 8-minute pace until the last 5k.  I think I was actually a pretty decent pacer though.

I've now gone 24 hours with no sleep and it's time to go to work...awesome.  Still say it was worth it though.