Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

34F, N 11 mph.  Since I knocked out this week's long run on Friday in Kansas with April, I just did 10 and change today.  It's been 3 weeks since my marathon, and 3 weeks since I've even run a single mile at marathon pace, so I gave it a shot today.  Started out with 6 quick warmup miles around 7:30-ish pace, then a 4-mile progressive tempo, starting at MP and finishing with a true threshold mile (6:55, 6:46, 6:34, 6:27).  It all felt very difficult, which means there's still a ways to go before I'm back in pre-Houston shape.  An hour later and I still feel out of breath.  Not sure whether the right thing to do is rest myself back into shape, or work myself back into shape.  I've tried the rest thing already though.. for 3 weeks.  So I'll go with the latter.

7:10 AP overall.

38F, 8:45 AP. early, dark, tired.

36F.  8:02/mile.  Felt crappy at first, then good.  I prefer this to crappy the whole time.

34F, N 13 mph.  7:23 AP.  After an 8-minute mile to start things off I quickly picked up the pace and did a pretty solid aerobic effort this morning.  The paces for the last half of the run were all 7:00-7:20 with the last mile finally sub-7.  So, not a very purposeful run since it was too slow to be MP, but things were feeling pretty good today so I tried to make it count for something.

37F.  8:42 pace.

38F, NNW 12 mph.  7:02 AP.  It was just a little too breezy for the track according to the rule I made up this morning which sets max wind at 11.99 mph for a track workout.  So close.

So I did a 12-mile out-and-back with no workout in mind, just knew I wanted to pick up the pace.  Ended up attempting a 5-mile tempo at the end.  Splits for all 12:

7:46, 7:21, 7:20, 7:14, 7:18, 7:16, 7:08, 6:35, 6:39, 6:38, 6:39, 6:34.

McMillan says my tempo range should be 6:17-6:34, but I just could not get down there.  Seemed impossible.  Maybe I still have marathon stink on my legs, or maybe it was the fast warmup.  I was pretty drained after the run.

I ran in the new Type A5's and loved them as I knew I would.  I am normally not the type to rush out and buy a new upgrade to a shoe when it first comes out, but I love the A4s and had some cash in the paypal account from winning my fantasy football league this year so I splurged a hundred bucks on 'em.  They are 5.6 oz, which is awesome, but still have the same sole as the A4's.  That's probably why I started so fast, got a little too excited.

27F, NNE 15-23 mph.  8:29 AP.  I waited until 10am and the windchill was still hovering around 15F, but I had to get it done as we have other stuff to do.  To make things worse I caught some kind of chest cold from the kids.  Kind of a miserable run, glad I just needed a few recovery miles.