Back On The Road Again

Well, I tried to not do today's scheduled progressive pace run. This morning, big and bad storms were coming in and bombed us at the time I had planned to go run at Town Lake. After that, it warmed up, and I lost focus about the run. I had almost talked myself out of running, already figuring out some weird compromised schedule for the week that would get the progressive run done... But then I had a short talk with myself, and got my butt out there this evening in my neighborhood for a progressive run, 7 mile variety. It was clear, but much warmer than last week's nice chill, at 72 degrees, dusk.

I decided on a 2 mile warmup, then 5 miles at progressive tempo, "run as I feel," and then after that, cooldown jogging to get me back to the house, depending on where I was after 7 miles. That would be the same as the I-35 Town Lake loop in distance, although my course would be tougher due to rolling hills. The 2 warmup miles were comfortable, at an average 9:27. Then, I started pushing. My intent was to slowly turn up the heat, finishing with my fastest mile, running at a pace that I thought I could hold for longer than the 5 miles I'd be running. My splits, on a rolling street course, were 8:18, 8:14, 8:04, 8:03, 7:58. Excellent pacing job. I was pushing a bit at the end, but that's the idea. After that, there were .3 miles to the house, which I jogged at around 10:30 pace, letting the body come down easy. I stretched when I got home, and did 4x30 crunches/extensions, 2x12 pushups, and 2x25 back raises.

Overall, the 5 mile pace section was at an average of 8:07/mile, and the overall run was 7.3 miles at 8:37 average pace. This was a good run on a day that I had motivation issues. It seems that on days like this, the hardest thing about the run is getting out the door with my running gear on. Once I get out the door, I usually do the workout just fine, and I almost always enjoy the run. Go figure. I can't wait to see the Gazelles tomorrow morning, so that I can workout with my running pals and feel the excitement of the group again. It's been a week, and I miss that support.

Now, I can proceed with my scheduled week as I had anticipated yesterday, instead of trying to shoehorn in a progressive run on Wednesday between two speedwork sessions. That would have been a recipe for disaster.