Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

5 recovery @ 8:48 pace.  Legs were kinda sluggish from the prior 3 days of abuse but did fine for a recovery jog.  No troubles from the right ankle, and the left had only the same mild discomfort for the first 2.  I also ran on a new pair of shoes - same brand of Asics that I had but without the tread worn down.  They worked out fine.

Normally I take Monday out but Danielle is going out of town and I'll have the kids to myself so I'll take Tuesday or Wednesday off.

My ankle is 99% now and the entire run was pain free so I decided I'd throw in a sprint mile.  I picked mile 4 because it climbs 50 ft uphill and I don't want to go around overestimating my speed (although, crap, I realize now there was a 10mph tailwind).  Anyway, I did the first 3 at an 8:27 pace, then broke into a nice 1-mile sprint.  The climb all comes in the first half-mile and I was right at a 6:40 pace at the top after 0.5.  Then I started working it down as the terrain flattened out to finish at a 6:28 for the mile.  So maybe a little faster than I expected, which was cool.  Last mile was an 8:51 cooldown for an 8:09 overall pace.

If I put 6:28 for a mile into some of the predictor calculators out there, it says my 10k and HM paces should be faster than I know I can hold for those distances, so there's further confirmation I'm not in shape yet.  For example, 7:55/mile for the half is hilariously beyond my ability, so I think I'm doing the right thing trying to add a few miles each week.

Rest day.  Danielle's mom had surgery for her cancer in Dallas and it went well so she should be out of the hospital tomorrow.  I may be able to sneak a run in at night if she gets back home in time.

Late night 4.0 @ 8:03 pace.

We got 4 inches of snow..?  Anyway, the streets are blanketed so I opted for the TM today since I was planning on some speed work.

1.5 mile warmup @ 6.7 mph

4 sets of 2 fast minues (9.0 mph) and 2 slow minutes (6.4 mph)

0.5 cool down @ 6.7 mph.

Early morning run, 8:50 pace felt like it should have been 30 seconds faster for the effort I gave - legs were stiff and would not go, which seems to always happen on the pre-sunrise runs.  Good thing it was supposed to be an easy day.

Looked it up...it all makes sense now (http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=7567&PageNum=1)  I'm still learning.

My most hated wind, the south wind, was whipping around today.  We live in a subdivision on the south end of a highway, so I always run north to a lake which starts about 4.5 miles to the north.  The south wind means I get thrashed by a headwind all the way home when I'm most tired.  I did good today though, it was a great run.  I almost went down some east-west dirt roads but they were a little too muddy from the melted snow so I pressed north to explore some more of the lake.  My splits were 8:22, 8:24, 8:28, 8:35, 8:17, 8:31, 8:26, 8:19, 8:16, 8:09, 7:40.  1:31:35 total, average 8:19.  I'm pretty proud of the last 4 into a 10-15 mph headwind.  Mile 6 had a closed-off road (hard to tell that from satellite imagery) that caused me to go trail running for about a minute, and I had to leap some cacti and duck under mesquite branches.  My right kneecap didn't appreciate the maneuvering as I'm starting to get a very mild case of runner's knee.  Not enough to bother me during a run though.

One thing I did different today was to pop 200mg of caffeine as I walked out the door.  It gave me a great burst of energy around an hour into the run (right as I was starting those last 4 miles).  I don't feel bad about it at all, I think it really helped!  Next week I'm gonna try taking a gu at some point.  At some point, I'm gonna have to figure out a way to hydrate during the run.

Weekly mileage - 34.0.