Not quite sure how to classify tonight's run. Started out as a routine 9-miler on the treadmill at 10:00 pace, but as I went on, I felt better, so I kept cranking up the TM. By the 4-mile mark, I was at 9:00 pace (AKA sub-four), did two miles there, then cranked it to 8:34 pace for 2.5 miles and ran the last half-mile at 8:00 pace.
Run started late. My boss decided it was time for everyone in the office (including him) to recertify in CPR. In my case, it was loooooong overdue; my CPR certification expired in like 1996, and the guidelines have changed a lot in the last 12 years. So a nurse came over after work and we all took an hour and a half giving mouth-to-mouth to mannequins and doing two-finger chest compressions to baby dolls. But I still think if somebody hit the floor in front of me and I had to do something, instinct would take me back to what I learned in 1994, not what I learned today. Anyway, because of that, my nine-miler started at 7 p.m., not 5:30. Yet another incentive for me to start getting out of bed at 5, not 7, and running early. But still not enough incentive for me to actually DO that.
Actually, it poured this morning around 10 and temperatures dipped into the low 70s. That would have been as perfect as Arkansas running weather gets in July -- cool and rainy. But, unfortunately, I was seeing patients and filling pumps, not putting in miles in the rain.
So this week will mark two milestones in my running -- Monday's one-year run-iversary, if you will, and my first 40-mile week. So far, so good. I've done 23 miles in the last three days and feel pretty good. Recovery (4) run tomorrow, take off Friday, 13 on Saturday. I think I'll adjust my schedule for a recovery run on Sunday instead of what I've done the last three days; when 23 in 3 becomes 30-plus in 3, I may not handle that so well. | 