Weather - 83 degrees, sunny, humid. An unusual running day.
Michelle will be watching our pets this weekend since we will be in the
Quad Cities for the Bix 7. She wanted to meet me today for a run with
the 2nd Wind club at Meadowbrook Park so that I could give her our
house key. A couple of years ago I never missed a Tuesday "fun"
run with the club. However, I eventually determined that running the
concrete pathway at Meadowbrook was causing too much stress on my feet.
Once I stopped going to the fun run and did the majority of my workouts
on trails and grass my body felt less stressed. I arrived at
Meadowbrook at 6:30, just in time for the mile portion of the run. I
decided I was going to give another hard mile effort, just as
yesterday. I was talking with Michelle in the back of about 40 people
when the mile started, so I had to run on the outside grass for about
100M. When I got to the front I saw Ken Welle giving a good effort, so
I tried to get close to him. I caught him with 800m to go, and then
started to press the effort. There was one runner ahead of me, and I
used him to pull me through to the finish. I ran 5:55, so 1 second slower
than yesterday, although I am not sure if the pathway is an accurate
mile. Because I was surrounded by other runners, today's effort felt
easier than yesterday. After a 15 minute break of socializing,
everyone lined up to run the 3 mile course. I decided I was going to
run easy with Mike. We started at 8:45 pace and eventually worked our
way down, and with 1 mile to go we were cruising easily at 7:00 pace.
With 800m to go I pressed and was moving at 6:15 pace. After the run I ran 1 mile easy back home, then walked the final mile. The next three days will be short easy runs, with some hard sprints thrown in. #249
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