Lots of good stuff

I had a great 2 days! I took a half day from work on Friday and headed down to Delaware to Alexis' and then to DC for a Flyer's Pre-season game. This was my first live hockey game and it was great. Not so great for the Flyer's, they lost but its pre-season so its ok. We even had our first Chipotle after the game (PacerChris was so proud). We got home pretty late and had to get up early to volunteer at a local 5k so needless to say I'm exhausted right now.

So we get up and head to the 5k. Alexis had just finished saying, wouldn't it be funny if Matt (Scratch from kickrunners) showed up and then I see her eyes go big and her jaw drop and she starts laughing, I turn around and there he is walking over to register. We ended up being water girls which is pretty difficult. Almost as difficult as being on the other end, being the runner and trying to grab and drink the stuff. It was actually a lot of fun and the weather was great for a race.

After the race we headed to the running store so Alexis could get new shoes and then headed back to her place, got changed and headed out for a short run. We ended up doing 3 miles in 29 minutes. Since she has a 15k tomorrow she was supposed to take it easy, so I kept her slow and she made me speed up. We were perfect for each other! Now my 5k PR is 29:20 so I was really pleased with this run. It felt fine the first mile and then was comfortably hard the next 2 but never felt like a race pace for me which means I'm pretty confident I could easily kill that PR next time I do a 5k (especially since I've only run once, a week ago, in two weeks).

We got back to her house and stretched (and in my case, iced the foot) and then showered and went out to lunch. Afterwards it was time for me to head home. I pulled in the driveway and hear Mommy!!!!! and see Avery, Bella and Boots running towards me. I was only gone a day and they made me feel like it was a month! Mike had a fire going and Avery and I roasted some marshmallows and had a great time.

Even though the weekends not over yet I can already tell you that it was a great one!

Change of pace

Today we did our long run at the Columbia Trail. I haven't run there since the spring. It's a 7.5 mile rail trail and its beautiful, mostly flat and slight decline from mile 5 on. My RP is having some ankle issues so she wanted to avoid hills and it's taper time so only 7-8 miles on the schedule.

First couple of miles my calves were tight. I think this was because of the tempo yesterday, I noticed it on my cool down mile yesterday too. After that I felt great. My legs felt a little tired around 3.5 miles but then everything just opened up and I felt great. I could have gone faster but my RP kept asking that we slow it down because her ankle would start bugging her. While our splits aren't that great it was great to know I could go faster and longer with absolutely no effort. The only negative was the humidity was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I was soaked after the first 1/2 mile. I didn't enjoy that too much but it didn't seem to bother my legs or lungs too much.

Here are the splits:

11:10
11:00
10:41
10:50
10:50
10:38
10:20
10:03

I've decided to treat the PDR as a progression run. I'm going to split it up into 3's and leave the last mile for whatever I feel like. This isn't a goal race for me and I have two friends completing a half for the first time so I don't really care about my time so doing a progression sounds like a good plan.

After I stopped by my oldest friends house and visited with her and her baby. On the way home I stopped at the farm stand for my weekly veggies and fruits. I need to clean the house but I think I'm going to relax and read for a while. There is an Italian festival going on that we might take Avery to later but we're pretty much winging it today.

Mojo

So last week I didn't get to run because of my quad issues. The first 3 days of non-running were torture, I so wanted to be out there running. The fourth day I was able to run again but wasn't able to get the run in due to life issues but I wasn't too bummed about it. The next day was our little tropical storm so no running. I was content to sit at home and read all day. Sunday I went for my first run and it was supposed to be 12 miles. I made it 5.5 and it totally sucked. My injuries were better but lower leg, achilles, etc were hurting like crazy. I was not pleased. I decided to take Monday off and shift my schedule up to give myself time to adjust. Tuesday we had crazy storms so I didn't get my run in again and my mojo was gone. I didn't care that I wasn't missing it. I was grumpy (from lack of running but I didn't want to run either) and discouraged. I thought to myself that maybe I wasn't cut out for 3 more months of training and the marathon was a bad idea.

This morning I felt much the same way. Tired, lazy and not motivated to go to the track. But I knew I would. I also knew that this had better be a good workout or my mojo wasn't going to come back. I packed up Avery, my Aunt and my water and towel and got in the car. I dropped them off at the park and ran to the track. The warmup was ok. Kindof slow but I figured that was a good thing. The rest was awesome. I felt great, my legs felt powerful and there was no pain. The 1600 went really well. I felt that I went at a pace that was hard but maintainable for the whole mile. I was definitely out of breath when I was done but my legs still felt great. I did 2 loops of recovery one walking one running slow. The 800 felt great too! The 400 went well but I felt like I should have been faster. I definitely felt like I should have been faster for the 200. Faster in the sense that I felt like I was running faster than I actually did for both.

I couldn't wait to get home and compare it to my first ever interval session (and ladder) just a month ago. Here are the results:

I have found I really enjoy doing intervals. Especially the ladders. It's great as the distance gets less the effort gets greater. For 2 years I feared speedwork like it was the plague. Now I actually look forward to it!

Guess my mojo is back!

Nice....

I had a great run this morning. I was supposed to do 10 but I only ended up w/ 9. I felt a hotspot forming on the inside of my right arch. I was thinking of doing the crazy big hill for the last mile but since I knew I was getting a blister and had to do speedwork tomorrow I cut it short. My average pace was 10:06! All summer my average pace has been between 11:30 and 11:40.

Today I never felt like I was running too hard and I never felt like I was runnig too easy. Just right.

Here are my splits:

10:37
10:02
9:55
9:45
10:02
10:09
10:09
10:31 (I don't know why I slowed down so much here.)
9:43

Sweet. This was a big confidence builder. I guess the speedwork and tempo runs are paying off. I also want to thank Jill and Maureen. I met them in my first 1/2 mile and ran the next 2.5 or so with them. They made me pick up my pace more than I planned but when I realized it wasn't to hard to maintain I tried to keep it up for the rest of the run. Thanks Guys!

Bring it on!

I am so loving the early morning weather!!!! I had an amazing "easy" run this morning. Easy is in quotes because I didn't take it so easy, although it didn't really feel hard. I figure that is due to the amazing 50 something degree weather and the fact that I did the tempo last night. 5 miles with awesome splits:

10:54
10:44
10:37
10:20
9:39

The last mile is after the crazy hill and I always take it faster because we push so hard up it that once we're over we just fly! This run goes in the books as one of my favorite runs ever.