TexasLindsey

7.3 miles at 5am.  Weather=80ish, 65% humidity, dark.

Did something different today.  Ashley, Tim and I met Jodi to run some hills around the TCU area.  It was about a 15 minute drive for all of us.  It was fun to do something a little different.  The hills were a good workout. 

I am still trying to understand my new Timex watch.  I am so confused by it.  I only recorded 4.5 miles with average pace 8:15/m, but everyone else had 7.3 miles... so apparently I did something wrong with starting and stopping it.  The information is now useless because I don't know what it was recording and when.  Not even sure if that 8:15 number is accurate.  During the run the watch was showing me weird things like 39.19 MI. What the heck does that mean?  I only saw the 8:15 average pace after I go home because it certainly didn't display that while I was running.  I know, I'm technologically challenged.  It also doesn't display START and STOP when I hit the buttons so I can't verify that I'm doing it correctly.  I can't figure out how to get it to do auto-splits for each mile.  I am beyond frustrated and really regretting that I didn't buy another Garmin 305 off the internet. 

So we ran about a mile to the end (guess cuz I am basically watchless), then we did a hilly 2.2 mile loop two times, then we did 5 hill repeats and then back to the cars.   I kept up on the first 2.2 loop but fell WAY behind on the second.  I think Tim and Jodi got about 1/2 mile ahead of me.  Ashley was at least 1/4 mile ahead.  I have no idea the pace they were going or I was going... Did I mention how frustrated I was by this watch.  My legs were burning.  I am just not in as good of shape as everyone else.  It made me really motivated to ramp up my milage. 

6 miles at 5am.  Weather= 80F, humid, dark.

Starting to figure out my new watch a little bit better.  It does altitude too. 

mile 1- 11:00 (Altitude 880 ft)

mile 2- 9:03 (Altitude -27 ft) 

mile 3- 8:33 (altitude -2 ft)

mile 4- 8:31 (altitude -37 ft)

mile 5- 8:14 (altitude 104 ft)

mile 6- 9:36 (altitude -32 ft)

I'm tired.  It's hard waking up at 4:30.  Tomorrow a group of people are meeting at the store at 4:40 am.  I said I'd go too but that would mean I'd have to wake up at 4:00 am.  I hope I get to bed early tonight!

Ran in the new Nimbus shoes again.  Numb feet again.  When I got home, I realized that the shoes are Narrow.  I don't need Narrow shoes!  I've stuffed them with socks to try to stretch them out. 

9 miles at 4:40am.  Weather=80F, 70% humidity, dark.  (mile 1-8:55, mile 2- 8:24, mile 3- 8:22, mile 4- 8:28, mile 5- 8:37, mile 6- 8:38, mile 7- 8:10, mile 8- 7:57, mile 9- 7:40)

I agreed to meet Ashley, Tim, Wendy and Tom at 4:40am by TCU.  It's a 15 minute drive so I had my alarm at 4am.  When it went off, I laid there for about 10 minutes trying to figure out if I wanted to send a text saying that I wasn't coming.  I finally decided that I would feel guilty if I didn't run and I told myself that if I had a good run today, I would let myself sleep in on Friday.  Up and at 'em.

I finally am starting to get the hang of my new watch, which really made the run more enjoyable.  We started out rather slow.  Tim led us down a trail that went off the road and into this woodsy area.  The moonlight was the only light.  It was kinda neat looking, but I was worried I would fall.  Ashley did fall.  She got road burn on her leg.  We stopped in mile 2 to let Ashley recover and to change the plans from running on the path to instead run on the streets. 

We ran all streets from that point on.  The road was slanted so we were trying to stay in the center and move to the sides when cars came.  I do not know what it was about this morning but I started feeling awesome.  I haven't had such a good run in a long time.  I guess this is my reward for getting up at 4am.  I felt like I could have run 8-8:30 pace all day long!  Miles 5-6 had some hills but the rest of the miles were relatively flat.  The last couple miles back to the cars I just opened it up because I felt so good.  It was great! 

16 miles at 5:30am.  Weather= 73F, 40% humidity, dark then sunny.  

Met Ashley, Jody, Wendy and Britt at the store.  I was feeling great today.  I don't know what happened, but it's like this week I just "woke up" and suddenly now I am back to my old self fitness speaking.  I felt so strong.   

We were going to do this 8 mile loop twice to make 16 for the day, but it turned out that the loop was only 7.  At the end of mile 11, the store had ice cold water and nuun out.   From this point we could go two different ways.   The running store had water out today on the loop that we had been running but it was shorter than what we wanted.  The girls wanted to go out further on the trail in the opposite direction to get more milage.  They have been running 18-20 every Saturday.  I was iffy about this plan because there wasn't cold water in that direction.  I didn't carry water with me, it was getting hotter and I was starting to feel tired.  I ran with them another mile further up the trail and then I said I was heading back to the store. So miles 12-16 were by myself.  I slowed down after I left them.  

 This was the longest run I've had in several months.  I need to continue to improve my endurance by adding milage every week.  When it starts getting cooler I want to start doing some tempos in the evening.   

mile 1- 8:40

mile 2- 8:10

mile 3- 8:00

mile 4- 7:52

mile 5- 7:50

mile 6- 7:48

mile 7- 7:54

mile 8- 7:47

mile 9- 7:36

mile 10- 7:39

mile 11- 7:34

mile 12- 8:15

mile 13- 8:48

mile 14- 8:23

mile 15- 8:31

mile 16- 7:55