Same Time, Same Channel

Easy Run + 3 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:52.

Weather: 53°, 86% humidity, winds calm.

Today is the first day of school. Accordingly, I got out the door at 5:15 this morning. That's fine when I have a short run like today, but I'll have to be earlier some days. It looks like seminar is going to be at 6:30 (it doesn't start until next week), and so I'll have to be finished with my runs by 6:15 so I can drive Thing 2 to seminary. I had to drive Thing 1 at 6:30 this morning because he's mentoring freshmen today. So now it's back to the routine and the grindstone.

Both hamstrings were quite tight this morning, but they did loosen up a bit in the course of the run. I didn't shoot for any specific pace today. Splits were 10:13, 10:02, 9:50, 9:35, 9:29. Pace on the hill sprints was 7:00, 6:51, 7:44.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:51. Splits: 10:26, 9:51, 10:05, 9:51, 9:38, 9:16.

5:30am, 60° F, 72% humidity, winds calm.

My husband woke me up at about 2:30 this morning because he was stressing out about his job. I had a hard time sleeping after that and I thought about scrapping the run as a result. But I decided that I needed the run to clear my mind. I wore the Garmin, but looked at it only for the 1st split, which I saw was slow. After that I didn't look at it the rest of the run and just ran by feel. My hamstrings are a little tight, but not as bad as yesterday.

***Update***

I'm a dork. I got to work this morning feeling all proud of myself for being on time for a change. And then I got up to my desk and realized that I had left my computer at home. Fortunately, I live fairly close to my office. The round trip to get my computer took about a half hour.

Easy Run. Average pace: 9:29. Splits: 10:18, 9:28, 9:17, 9:25, 9:39, 9:15, 9:14, 9:08.

5:30 am, 64° F, 50% humidity, wind 4 SSE.

I slept better last night than I did the night before, so that's good. But I was a little slow getting out of the house this morning because I changed the laundry and folded the load that I took out of the dryer before I went out for my run.

I tried a new route today that I sort of made up as I went along. It incorporated parts of other routes I do, but added a stretch on County Line Road. I've been avoiding County Line Road because it is really hilly. But the stretch I did today was the easy part. Maybe I'll do one of the other sections in the coming days. My run today was supposed to be 7 miles, but I under-estimated some of the distances and so it took me an extra half mile to get home.

Getting up early this week is taking its toll on me. I went to Sam's Club last night, and as I was leaving, the lady who checks your receipt at the door told me that I looked really tired.

I've had a very busy morning between laundry, messing with the sprinklers, and driving to the high school because Thing 1 had to take his string bass. I've to get crackin' now and get to work.

Progression Run - 8 miles w/ last 10 min. moderate. Average pace: 9:15. Splits: 10:04, 9:30, 9:37, 9:26, 9:29, 9:25, 9:08, 7:49 (last 10 min.)

5:30 am, 67° , 40% humidity, wind 4 SSE.

I continue to make it out the door at about 5:30 am. That's okay for this week, but that's not going to cut it next week. I'm going to have to be out the door by 5:00 or even earlier sometimes starting next Monday. I've got to find a way to get to bed earlier. I was busy until after 10:00 last night and I've got stuff to go to tonight as well.

I got a little braver than yesterday and ran County Line Road from Colorado Blvd. to Quebec St. It was hilly, but not too bad. It was worse when I turned on Quebec St. and started going South into the wind. One of these days I might have the guts to do County Line Road from Broadway to University. When we first moved to Colorado 11 years ago, we used to drive County Line Road with the kids just for fun. It was like a roller coaster. It was narrow and very hilly. Since then they've widened it and flattened it out a bit, but it is still quite hilly.

**Update**

I forgot that I was going to mention the random things I saw on the road while I was running this morning: a pair of broken sunglasses (not too strange), a pair of little girls panties, clean looking (kind of strange), an electric hand mixer minus the blades (very strange). I normally don't see stuff like this on the road. I don't know why there were so many things this morning.

In other news, I remembered to bring my computer to work this morning (I had to take it home last night in order to do some extra work).

Easy run. Average pace: 9:39.

5:30 am, 69° , 41% humidity, wind 2 SSW, overcast.

I must have hit my snooze alarm twice this morning before I was conscious of it. When I became conscious, my husband was in the bathroom, so I stayed in bed until he came out. At that point, I used one of Snoqualmie's phrases, "just sit up," and it worked. Now if I can just reach consciousness when my alarm first goes off.

6 miles is my typical distance for an easy run and it's been taking me just under an hour. I decided to add a little extra distance today and run for the full hour.

I went to back-to-school night at the elementary last night and it's a good thing. Before that, the fact that there is no school at the elementary today or on Monday had not permeated my brain. They're doing assessments, so each kid has one half-hour appointment sometime on one of those two days. If I hadn't gone to back-to-school night last night I would have showed up at the bus stop with my daughter this morning and wondered where everyone was. As it is, it's fortunate that I brought my computer home last night because now I have to work from home today and Monday because there's no one else in the family who can stay home with my daughter. I guess I need to pay more attention to what is going on at the schools.

Progression Run - 10 miles w/ last 10 minutes moderate. Average pace: 8:57.

7:30 am, 67° , 44% humidity, wind 4-8 SSW.

I've written about my friend Michelle and her friend Michelle before. I've run with the a couple of times before and we all did the Georgetown Half together last Saturday. Well, my friend Michelle was put in charge of coming up with a recurring small group activity as part of the Relief Society Enrichment program at church. She decided to do a running group. So the plan is to meet at the Highline Canal Trail every Saturday morning at 7:30. Today was the first day. Attendance today was me, Michelle, and Michelle. We've got to try to get some more people involved. There are some other people at church who run a little bit and can maybe be talked into coming. Walkers are invited too.

Michelle and Michelle don't have quite the endurance right now that I have, but they are fairly fast runners. They tend to go out a little faster than I usually start out on a long run. They were running just 4 miles today, and so I ran 2 miles with them and then they turned around and I continued on. Those 2 miles were a little faster than they would have been if I had been by myself. But once I got that fast start with them, I kind of kept going fast and ran the easy part a little faster than I probably should have. A particular problem was mile 7, when this song came on and I could match my cadence to its beat, but that resulted in a somewhat aggressive pace. So when it came time for the moderate part, I had to work a little harder than a moderate effort in order to pick up the pace from what I had been doing. With that said, here are my splits: 9:19, 9:14, 9:11, 9:05, 9:03, 9:03, 8:48, 8:58, 9:05 (pace for .8 miles), 7:56 (pace for 1.26 miles).

I actually don't have a very busy day today for a change. Maybe I can take it easy, or maybe I can get some housework done, or maybe I'll take the kids swimming or something.