Another light week of running but finishing with a PR

Monday 5/16: didn't feel well, see last week's update.

Tuesday 5/17 (6.2mi, 53min, 8:32/mi) I felt a little better than Monday and was ready to run again so I put on my newly purchased Vibram Five Fingers Bikila shoes and went out to Viewpoint park for a few laps. The shoes felt okay on the pavement but felt great on the trails. They are a fairly tight fit but didn't bother my toes. After the run I found that I not only had a blister on the outside/bottom of my left foot but a spot on the top of my right foot where the stitching inside the shoe had given me quite a painful abrasion. That's a strike or two against the VFFs right off the bat. I'm not sure if I'll keep them after that first run. As soon as the abrasion heals I'll give them another try. The Merrell Trail Gloves are still working really well for me and I just love running in them. I don't need to wear socks with them, and they don't hurt my feet. I've heard people refer to them as the Vibram One Finger. Great shoes.

Wednesday 5/18 (3mi, 23min, 7:45/mi) I ran to warm-up before lifting weights at the gym again. I thought I'd try a little speedwork so I ran 1/2mi warm-up, then 5 x 1/4mi starting at 90 seconds and working down to 78 seconds for the final repeat. I ran 1/4mi recovery interval between each rep at 9:00 pace. It was a pretty hard workout but I could have kept it up (descending times) for a few more at least.

Thursday 5/19 (6.25, 50min, 8:06/mi) I ran relatively easy out to the Bridle Trails then ran down the East border until I got to the southeast ridge where I started running up the various paths to the top and then jogging down. I probably ran up and down 6 times before turning for home. I was almost out of the park when I caught a root with my big toe and tumbled to the ground. I landed on my side on the soft dirt and other than my throbbing toe I was unscathed.

Friday 5/20 (6.5mi, 47min, 7:19/mi) I started out easy and ran out to the Bridle Trails again. I picked up the pace when I got to the park and headed down the East side. From there I ran along the South border until I got to the middle of the park where I headed North and back out. I kept a hard pace for the rest of the run in the trails, then slowed a bit before picking it up for the last mile. If I'd pushed it from the start I think I could have taken the average pace < 7:00/mi.

Friday 5/20 (3.0 km, 24:30, 13:14/mi) After work on Friday I hurried home and changed into running clothes, picked up my daughter who was ready and waiting and we went to a local elementary school that holds an annual 3km charity / memorial run in the name of one of it's former teachers. The school is only about 3 miles from home and the race is held at 6:30pm on a Friday night. On top of that it was only $10 to enter and was all for a very local charity. Tough to pass that one up.

There was no kids category so we both raced in the Open division. We started out quick (for us) at the back of the pack and ran pretty hard for the first 1/2 mile. We adopted a run/walk strategy on the first hill. At about the 1mi point we ran through the first of several sprinklers to cool down. The course was punishing but we did our best to run the downhill parts and some of the flats. We looped around the streets before coming back to the school to the finish.  We started our finishing kick a little too early and were really worn out with 200m to go. It was hard but we convinced ourselves to push ourselves for that last bit on an empty tank to cross the line with a new 3km PR! (for both of us).