alabama master

Easy 7 on another hot and humid Mobile morning. 52:05/ 7:27 even pace.

3 miles in a laid back cross country race at Huntsville Track Club's Summer cross country runs. Ran sans watch so not sure of my time, est. 19+/-, good for 5th place out of 59. Ran w/o my contacts on roots and rocky trails in heavily shaded woods making the footing a bit precarious. Other three were running out and back to pace Kelly and a shag/walk with my two older girls in the 2 mile race. Good family time. HTC puts this event on every Tuesday night throughout the summer, so we wil hopefully get out to more of them.

Am run in neighborhood. 2 mile warm up w/Brother then 7 X .5mile @ 2:40-2:47 with 2 min rest, on my home loop. Ran the middle 3 the fastest. 1 mile cool down. Felt OK, probably should have gone a little bit faster.Drank and dumped a lot of water on head btw intervals.

Night run in neighborhood and oak lea area. I didn't have any fatique from yesterdays intervals so I did a fartlek ladder run. 6 miles in 42:00 with milege breakdown of 7:44, 7:05, 6:16, 6:39, 6:50, and 7:24. The whole run felt pretty effortless, a good sign.

Hey, I ran a marathon in milage this past week and I feel great! If only the real thing were that easy.

I biked to work today (7.12 miles round trip)and plan on doing it every chance I can over the summer. My route has an out of the saddle killer climb right at the end going up to the center, so I think I'm getting a good fitness benifit from it even though it's a short ride.

7.12 miles on bike to work and home

Normally I would have the day off today, but got called in for 9hrs of OT.  7.12 miles on the bike. 75 deg at 5:30 am, 88 at 3:00 pm. HOT!

Evening hill workout on Jessie Dr.  6 X hill plus warm up/cool down. Still HOT!

7.12 miles on bike.

Easy evening run through neighborhood and oak lea w/o Garmin.

7.12 miles on bike

Easy run at Delano Park on the 1 mile loop. Ran right after a light lunch while the girls were playing at the splash pad. No stomach troubles. It was nice to get an immediate cool down in the splash pad right after my run.

Alabama A&M 10k tomorrow. Kelly is running also. A very tough, hilly course. I've never run it before so I'm going conserative with my time prediction,  40:00.

A hot and humid morning to run a 10K. I was happy with my time even though I positive split, THE HILL the second time humbled me. Earned some good points in the Grand Prix. Kelly ran well, 1:04 wich is a great time for her on this tough course.

Eric and I did a little over five after the awards. His endurance is far above mine at this time and my legs were acheing by the time we finished at the top of THE HILL.

Free samples at Costco helped refuel after the long morning of running.

7 miles on the bike as Eric and I measured the Spirit Run course.

X-C runs at the running park in Huntsville. Warmed up with a 7 min mile, then ran a 5:23 in the 1 mile race. Had a short recovry for the 3 mile race which I labored through in 21:00, splits of 6:44, 7:25(step hill climb), and 6:49. Two weeks ago I ran it in 19:00 but w/o the speedy mile before. After the 3 mile I was able to get in a 1 mile recovery run in 9:15. Last race was the 2 mile in 12:50, splits 6:42 and 6:08. After the 3 mile I thought I was done for the night, it felt good to be able come back strong in the 2 mile. Did a 1 mile cool down run(8:45) with Dink Taylor, ultraruner extrodinaire. A good nine mile night

Met Eric at our church as he was running home from work. Ran the last 2.33 with him just under 8 min pace. He had also run to work and helped pace some co-workers to reach fitness goals, so he ended up with a 20+ milage day. Had a 45 min rest break at Eric's house before running back to the church (2.29 miles, I cut some corners) @ 6:34 pace. Short milage day but I ran with a friend and got some good quality in.

Night run, 1st time I ran with MP3 player that Kelly and the girls got me for Fathers Day.  I haven't run with headphones in over 20 years. Back then it was a Sony cassette walkman that when you ran fast the music would drag or drop out. We're all digital now, light weight and no moving parts. I found myself running to the beat many times, I was listening to They Might Be Giants, Here Come the ABC's (not just for kids). My plan was to run an easy even paced run, but it turned into a progression run, splits 8:11, 7:23, 7:00, 7:00. I made a point to not look at my Garmin along the run and was surprised at the pace of the last two miles, they felt effortless.

No race in local area tomorrow so a track workout is planned. 

14.5 on bike getting to and from the start of my runs. It is getting hard for me to justify driving somewhere to run(except for races), so I'll either train from home or bike to and from the start of my runs.

9 AM- Track workout at Austin High. 2 mile warm up on track then changed shoes to my DS Trainers and did 10 X 200 @ 34-36 with a 200 shag in 70-72. I met my time goal on each one, only feeling a little arm strain on the last two. I'll do this workout again but I'll need to shorten the recovery to get a better benefit. Pre used to do a workout simular to this but he ran 30 for the first 200 and 35 recovery for the second 200, and he did it til he couldn't hit the goal times. After the 200's I was still feeling pretty good so I ran a 400 in 67. This is faster than needed(74's) for my quest for the mile record(4:57), but I want to set the record with a new one that"ll be harder to beat. 1 mile cool down on the track.

2 PM- Mostly easy run w/Eric and Bob from Eric's house, on refuge trails, Point Mallard trails, soccer fields and roads. My plan was to meet up with them and run a relaxing 6 or 7 miles(8 min pace). Well... we did that but were still 2.25 from Eric's house and he decided to pick up the pace (6:30), I hung on for a little bit, but the mornings workout had my hamstrings twitching and I dropped back. He did however back off and let us catch back up and we finished up back at 8 min pace. It was in the mid 80's with a 55% humidity, not too bad, but when we got back to his house I couldn't cool off and wasn't feeling too good. I hosed  myself down and tried to rehydrate (I carried a bottle on the run) but I think I was working from a deficit from the mornings workout. 20oz of cold chocolate milk does wonders and I was able to bike home w/o any problems 

Easy four on a 1/2 mile loop at Aquadome Park while my youngest was at swim lessons. They discourage the parents being around the pool during the lesson, so I took the opportunity to get in a short run. 29:14/ 7:19 even pace.

X-C runs in Huntsville  6:01 mile, 18:51 3 mile, 12:33 2 mile. Last mile of 2 mile was 6:08

2 easy cool down miles

Evening run thru neighborhood and oak lea. 37:09/7:04 pace

7 miles on bike

Race prep and family activities all day. I have registered for my first TRI. It's a short one,(400m swim, 15k bike, 5k run) so as long as I make it out of the water alive I'll do well.

At Spirit 5 mile while co-directing race. We age/gender graded the start for a change this year. We had  a lot of good feedback and will do it again next year, expanding it out to our older runners (Jim Howell-86!), and adding more awards. Check out the results at:

www.rivercityrunners.org

Kelly ran the 1 mile fun run in 8:23, a PR!

night run thru neighborhood @ 7min pace, temp and humidity has dropped so it was comfortable.