AM: Paid a visit to my old friend/nemesis Mount Loafer. Wanting to get the hills out of the way early this week with Kim and I running a 5K on Friday. First time running Loafer in nearly a year and hoped it would feel a little easier than past years but it was still plenty difficult getting it going on the uphill. Only went up to the gate and skipped the ugly 10% grade last mile. I haven't looked at my splits from previous years but I think I do think the whole run was probably faster than I've ever done it before so that makes me feel pretty good about the run. I had heard there had been a group doing Loafer on Mondays but nobody there today except for some run/walk Salem folks that I passed on the way up. Ran from Loafer school down to Salem Canal road, up to the gate and back down, then tacked on enough extra to get to 8 miles. It's hard to know how to log these hilly miles, going off effort I decided to log as 4 easy miles, 3 marathon pace, 1 threshold.
Uphill splits: 8:28 (included a bit of downhill at the beginning), 9:07, 9:24, 6:40 (.66 miles, 10:07 pace)
Downhill: 6:17, 6:44, 6:56, 7:14 (added some flat), 2:48 (.34 miles, 8:14 pace on slight uphill)
Overall average pace: 7:57.
PM: Ran with Paul out Lakeview direction 5.1 miles on a nice hot day. We decided to be wild and crazy and go on a few roads we don't usually run on so we didn't have to go on some boring roads we're tired of. Paul was pretty good to keep the pace calm but he cheated on mile 3 or 4 and we dropped below 8-min pace (Paul you don't mind if I blame you do I?).
Ave pace: 8:11 | 