Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run + 3 x 8-sec. hill sprints.

6:33 am, 59°F, 21% humidity, winds 6 SSW, overcast.

It was much warmer this morning than it has been in a long time. We seem to have skipped Spring and gone straight from Winter to Summer. But it was actually fairly pleasant running weather this morning because it was overcast.

I took the long way to the corner where I meet up with Allie and Lindsay on occasion. I ran about 1.2 miles before I met up with them. We ran about 3 miles together, and then I ran about a mile by myself to the bottom of the hill sprint hill.

About a minute or two into my run I went past a house where two dogs were out front. A man was out there with them, but one of the dogs chased after me and started running into me. He probably wanted to bite me but couldn't be because he was wearing one of those cone-shaped collar things. I told the dog to go home, but that didn't work. I thought if I just kept going that we would get too far from his house and he would head home, but that didn't work either. The man was calling the dog and the dog didn't respond to that either. The dog just kept coming after me no matter what. So I stopped so that the dog wouldn't chase me any more. I asked the man to please grab his dog so that I could keep going. He said he was trying, but it seemed to me that he wasn't trying very hard. In any case, he finally got the dog and I was able to go on.

During the part I was running with Allie and Lindsay, we crossed paths with Michelle and Michelle who were out running.

Most of my fourth mile was with just Lindsay. (Allie had turned off to go home.) That fourth mile was really slow. It's slightly uphill, so maybe that's why. Or maybe we subcoonsciously slow down when we don't have Allie to push us. Lindsay is not up for fast running right now because she's pregnant and is starting to get uncomfortable. At least I did speed up once I left Lindsay at her house and was on my own.

It's fairly common for me to see Thing 3 on his way to middle school when I'm doing hill sprints. But I was out slightly later today and so I saw Thing 2 walking to high school instead. Seminary ended last week and so now he doesn't go so early and  I told him he had to walk today. The high school actually starts 15 minutes later than the middle school. (They are right by each other and they share bus service.)

AP: 10:00. Splits: 9:49, 9:46, 10:01, 10:36, 9:43.
Pace on hill sprints: 7:01, 6:06, 7:21.

Fartlek run - 7 miles w/ 6 x 30 sec. @ 10K-3K pace

6:25 am, 42-49° F, 32% humidity, winds 10 SW.

I didn't get out the door as early as I intended to this morning, but at least I did get out the door.

I ran 2.6 miles before I started the first fast part because I wanted to get most of the big hill behind me before trying to run fast. I was just slightly uphill on the first fast part. After that, I went about 1/2 a mile, give or take a bit between each fast section. I sometimes started the fast section sooner or later in order to avoid crossing  street during the fast part. After I had completed all 6 fast parts, I had 1.25 miles more to go to finish. I saw Barbie during the last part. I thought about pulling out my cell phone and taking a picture, but I chickened out. She would have seen me do it.

I used the lap button on my watch to time the fast parts, so my splits are all different lengths. Average pace for the whole run was 9:42. Splits for the warm up at the beginning were 10:12, 9:51, and then 0.6 @ 10:00. I'll make a table to show my pace on the faster parts and the slower intervals in between.

Pace for 30 sec.	Distance and pace for rest interval
8:12	0.5 @ 9:52
7:26	0.54 @ 9:46
7:58	0.4 @ 9:43
7:06	0.66 @ 9:51
7:11	0.62 @ 9:32
7:23	1.0 @ 9:43, 0.25 @ 9:21

I did the shred, but I forgot to weigh myself this morning. I'm sure I've gained weight in any case. I'm having trouble getting my eating in control again these days, maybe because other parts of life or so stressful right now.

Easy run + 3 x 8-sec. hill sprints.

6:28 am, 33° F, 87% humidity, winds calm, snowing.

I had to check the date this morning. Is it really mid-May? It feels more like early March. Was it really warm enough to run in shorts just 2 days ago?

It snowed for the entirety of my run and is snowing still. It's mostly sticking to the grass and not to the roads. However, some of the places that I ran were slushy or snow-covered. And the most joyous part of all was when a car would drive by in the lane next to me and spray me with slush. At one point I had to stop to tie my shoe. I had my back to traffic and my foot up on a bus bench. A truck came along and sprayed my backside.

I started my hill sprints a little ways up the hill instead of at the bottom of the hill because there was a little river running across the bottom of the hill.

Michelle was planning to do 18 miles by herself on the trail this morning. I wonder if she's doing it, and if so, how it's going. I feel a little bad for bailing on her but not bad enough to drag myself through 18 miles this morning.

AP: 10:02. Splits: 10:20, 10:18, 9:55, 9:34, 9:48.
Pace on hill sprints: 6:51, 7:12, 6:59.

Progression run.

7:52 am, 42° F, 69% humidity, winds 2 NE, overcast.

Since I was meeting anyone to run this morning, I had a hard time getting myself out the door. I got up plenty early because I had to get my boys off on a young men's activity at 6:30, but then I dragged around for a while before finally heading out to run.

The instructions for my workout today were 7 miles, last 20 min. moderate (uphill, if possible). It is somewhat challenging to do a workout such as this where I have to estimate how far I will run in 20 minutes at a moderate pace in order to figure out when to start the moderate paced running. I figured I could go better than 2 miles in 20 minutes, but not a ton better. I decided to start the moderate part with 2.25 miles to go. I could have done it the last 2.15 miles because I actually ran the moderate pace for 21 minutes and 20 seconds. Oh well. I hit the lap button when I started the moderate part so that I could time it separately. Also, I was running at an increasingly fast pace prior to the moderate part, except for the last .75 miles before I started the moderate part. I think I slowed down in anticipation. The last 21 minutes were not all uphill, but there was a significant amount of uphill, especially in the first mile of that part.

AP: 9:31. Splits for the easy part: 10:10, 10:04, 9:52, 9:43, 0.75 @ 9:55. Splits for the moderate part: 8:49, 8:34, 0.25 @ 7:55.

So here's something strange that happened last night. We had been in the garage working on bikes with the garage door open. I went in the house for a while and left the garage door open. In the mean while, it got dark. Then I needed to go to the store for something, so I opened the door from the house to the garage to go out to the car and I was startled by something big moving around in the garage. I couldn't really see what it was. I hurriedly closed the door. Then I opened the it again and looked and there was an owl sitting on the garage door. The garage door was open, so it was in a horizontal position parallel to and a little ways below the ceiling of the garage. I closed the door again and called my boys to come look. They looked and saw the owl but then it found it's way out and flew away while they were looking. My daughter was upset that she didn't get there in time to see the owl. I told my husband about it later and he asked if the owl had brought us a letter. It hadn't occurred to me to think of Harry Potter.