Catching up on my running

Monday 5/9 (7.7mi, 53min, 6:55/mi avg) I was working from home Monday so I did a tempo run around my "2 stores" loop, named so because it takes me out past both the Island View and Arletta stores. It takes about an hour to run at a conversational pace so I tried to see how much under an hour I could run it. I ended up a bit over 53 minutes. Any run that I can finish with < 7:00/mi pace makes me happy. It was almost a 3 minute PR for this route. Unfortunately I did get a visit from the Gingerbread Man mid-run.

Tuesday 5/10 (6.3mi, 50min, 8:07/mi avg) Back at work I ran out to Viewpoint park for 3 laps and then back to the office. I was feeling oddly good despite nearly turning myself inside out on Monday's run. I don't care much for the run out to Viewpoint park but I just love running around that loop. It's just under 1/2 mi per loop and being on a hillside less than 5% of it is on flat ground. It's either up or down. I wish it was closer to work so that I could spend less time/distance getting there and more time running loops.

Wednesday 5/11 (3.5mi, 25min, 7:09/mi avg) I went over to the gym to lift weights and ran 4x800m @ 3:00 to warm my muscles up. The first two were easy but the last two were hard to hold. I feel like I'm cheating if I don't put the incline on the treadmill at 2.5% or better even though this makes the equivalent pace harder than the numbers suggest.

Thursday 5/12 (8.4mi, 59min, 7:03/mi avg) I ran the "hour loop" from work at lunch as a second tempo run for the week. I started out pretty strong going down to Grass Lawn Park and up Old Redmond rd. I kept the pace up cutting across the power line trail and even through the back section of the Bridle Trails and down the road to 24th. I started to slow down heading down 24th and especially coming up the other side of 24th. I recovered once I was up on 148th heading back to work. My splits were surprisingly consistent given the hills:

1) 6:36 (downhill)
2) 7:06 (uphill)
3) 7:09 (uphill / flat)
4) 6:59 (flat)
5) 7:09 (slight downhill)
6) 6:50 (slight downhill)
7) 7:38 (steep downhill / steep uphill)
8) 7:12 (slight uphill)
8.4) 6:18 (flat)

Great week of running except that I felt like I was getting sick by Friday and felt pretty bad over the weekend and even through Monday so I didn't run any more this week. I got a whopping 26 miles in though most of them were pretty good tempo miles. I'll cut the weightlifting back and pick up the mileage when I pick my next race.