dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I ran 10 miles this afternoon with Anita in the running stroller.  After running the race on Saturday I decided to give my body a little bit more of a break than I have given myself recently, so I only ran once today.

During my run I ran 8 hill sprints (one was actually downhill, while seven were uphill) of about 100m each.  Running hill sprints while pushing a stroller took a lot more out of me than I thought it would, so my legs felt drained at the end of the workout.  Total time of 1:19:05 for 10 miles.

I ran to school this morning.  I felt better at the start than I was expecting, so I decided to run a fast mile about halfway through the run in order to practice running relaxed at a marathon effort.  I was dealing with a headwind, so I did not expect the time to be fast.  I started out a little too hard, but after a couple minutes I was able to relax more and get into a nice rhythm.  I was surprised to finish the mile in 5:12, as I thought the wind would slow me down to about 5:20 even with the harder effort at the beginning.

From the beginning of the run there was a light rain coming down on me (light enough that I wasn't getting wet).  About 6.5 miles into the run the rain started coming down on me a little harder, and it got progressively worse from that point of the run until I got to UNLV.  By the time I got into the lab I was soaked, and I could feel the water swishing around between my toes (the roads near the school were all partially flooded, so I had to run through a fair amount of water).  I sped up some during the last mile so that I could get indoors a little quicker.  Total time for 8.6 miles was 59:10.

PM: I ran home, 8.6 miles in 1:04:01.  I had to stay late at school today, which was not fun.  The only good thing that came out of it was that my clothes had dried off by the time I was leaving school to run home.  Overall, coming home late sucks, as I left the house before the little ones were awake this morning and I got home after they were in bed.

I ran to school this morning.  There was a little rain near the end of the run, but nothing like what I got hit with yesterday.  I ran 2 x 1 mile repeats during the run, followed by 2 x 1/2 mile repeats.  All distances were approximate, based on measurements I made while driving.  The two half mile repeats are probably the least accurate for distance, while the 1 mile repeats are more accurate as the city street layout has major intersections at 1 mile increments.  Anyhow, splits were 5:23, 4:58, 2:40 (maybe long?), 2:40 (just matched the time/effort for the previous repeat without regard to distance).  Total time for 8.6 miles was 59:38.

 PM: I ran home from school, running 8.6 miles in 1:03:38.  My legs felt a little tired, but nothing that a good night of sleep wont fix. 

I ran to school this morning with a time of 1:03:10 for 8.6 miles.  I ran 1 mile in the middle of the run that was not quite a "fast" mile, but was faster than usual, running it in 6:00.

PM: I ran home from school with a total time of 1:04:40 for 8.6 miles.

I ran an easy 10 miles this morning.  My calf felt a little tight, but not too bad.  I finished in about 1:14.

PM:  I scratched my second run for the day (5 miles).  I was just super tired, and my calf wasn't feeling happy either.  I may just need to keep the mileage in the low 90's now that school is in full swing rather than try and get into the 100's some more.  I have been more tired this week than I thought. 

I slept in this morning to help with the fatigue I was feeling yesterday.  That seemed to help a lot.  Unfortunately it did not seem to help with the sore calf, so I spent the morning massaging the calf, rubbing wintercrest on the calf, taking ibuprofen, and icing, all in an effort to get my leg feeling good enough to run a full 20 miles.

By the time I got out the door it was about 90 degrees outside, which is honestly not that bad considering that I have done many runs at 100+ degrees this summer.  Unfortunately my calf was still bugging me when I started running, and withing the first half mile of the run I was already wondering if I would need to shorten the run to 15 miles (or less).  Fortunately, the calf slowly started to loosen up (starting at about 1 mile), and by the time I was 2 miles into the run I didn't feel any discomfort at all, and I knew that running the full 20 miles wouldn't be a problem any more.  I was also glad that today's run was a planned "easy 20", meaning that I would only run a 4 mile tempo near the end, and also meaning that I would not need to change workout plans to avoid injury.

I started out running the first mile between 7:25 and 7:40 (not sure of the exact time because I didn't start my watch at first), and then sped up to 7:05 for the second mile.  After that I was hitting miles fairly consistently in the low 7:00 range or faster for the rest of the workout.  I hit 5 miles in 35:32 (based on the estimate of 7:40 for the first mile), made it to 10 miles in 1:10:05 (34:33 5 mile split).  I started my 4 mile tempo at about 14.75 miles, and hit the 15 mile mark in 1:43:52 (33:47 for 5 miles).  Splits for the 4 mile tempo were: 11:02 for the first 2 miles (missed the first mile marker, but the first mile was maybe a couple seconds faster than the second), followed by a 5:34 for mile 3 (lots of turn, tunnels, etc in this mile), and a final mile of 5:16 (total of 21:52 for 4 miles).  I ran the last 5 miles in 29:26 to finish with a total time of 2:13:18 (again, estimating the first mile at 7:40, which was a conservative estimate to begin with).

So, all in all I think it was a solid workout considering it was 90 degrees outside during the run, and I only stopped for water 3 times (at miles 4.75, 10.5, and 14.25), while only drinking maybe 12 oz of warm water each time I stopped.  I never really felt too pressed during the workout today, which is a good thing because this workout was supposed to be easy.  I was also glad that my calf still felt loose and didn't tighten up after I finished the workout today.  Hopefully that carries over into next week.