Thirteen and a Quarter Miles

Ran both of my weekday runs this week and was disappointed to see that my performance was off similarly to my performance in my weekend run. Wednesday's run was an improvement over Monday's, but it was still worse than any from the past couple months.

I decided for my weekend run to attempt 13 miles (more so 130 minutes). I got off to a slow start but otherwise felt pretty good. The weather was cooler than recent but it was more humid than usual, and I was a sweaty mess pretty quickly. I felt good through the first ten miles but then had to overcome the desire to quit. The desire got stronger and stronger as the minutes ticked on, but I didn't give in, and by the time I finished the 130 minutes, I had completed 13.3 miles. Pretty much hit the same pace as last week which was slower than desired, but I'm glad I covered the half marathon distance.

Speaking of half marathons, I finally signed up for the Urban Cow Half Marathon as planned. Five weeks to go!

I'm off to Las Vegas this upcoming weekend, so while I should get both of my weekday runs in, I'm not completely sure what, if anything, I will be doing for my long run. I'm currently thinking that I'll try to get an eight mile in Friday morning before I take off.

Another Less Than Stellar Performance

Not a lot of running to report this week. I was out of town for work-related business Monday through Wednesday, and I didn't bring my running gear as I felt like I could use the time off. Not sure if my long run yesterday confirmed that feeling or showed it to be short-sighted. My plan was to try to run 120-125 minutes and get in 12.5+ miles. I started to feel really horrible 110 minutes in, and I gave up a few minutes later. At the point I stopped, I felt like I was going to pass out on the trial. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

I did complete 11.4 miles in 112 minutes for a 9:49 average pace. That was nearly 20 seconds per mile slower than my recent long run pace. Hopefully the lack of a long run last weekend and no weekday runs this week is the culprit and not that I've peaked too soon. We'll see how things go next week.

Done in by Arena Softball

I was a little sore still on Monday after doing 12 miles last Saturday. Regardless, I still made it out for my Monday night run and did my full 50 minutes. Same story on Wednesday.

Friday at work, we had a team building event playing Arena Softball. It had been a number of years since I last played Arena Softball (or any form of baseball/softball), and I was pretty beat afterwards. When I woke up Saturday, I was pretty sore but thought I was still good to attempt a 12 mile run. I was wrong. Midway into the first mile my legs felt like I had already gone through the hilliest parts of the run. I was able to push through for a few miles, but eventually I knew based on the pace I was going that it was probably best to pack it in and save myself for another day. In the end, I did a weekday run (50 minutes) on the weekend.

With as sore as I was this morning, it's a good thing that I stopped when I did. I think pushing through for a couple more miles (or more) would have left me pretty beat up.

I'm travelling for business for the first half of this week, so I won't be getting in any evening runs. With how I still feel today, that's probably for the best. I should be recovered by the weekend, and hopefully I'm in good enough shape to be able to do a full two hours of running for what should be my longest run of the year.

Twelve Miles

I noticed after my run on Saturday that I was starting to wear through the sole of my running shoes. So I broke out my final pair of Asics Gel GT-2170s (roughly two years ago I stocked up on six pairs as the model went out of production) which means that I'm going to have to find a new model of running shoes soon. Not looking forward to trying to find shoes that I enjoy as much.

The new shoes felt great on my first run, and I rocked a far better pace for my Monday 50 minute run (dropped a good 20 seconds per mile). Wednesday, I ended up feeling sick in the evening and didn't get to go for a run.

I decided prior to heading out on Saturday that I was going to go for 12 miles which would require a bigger change to my route. According to my schedule for preparing for the Urban Cow Half Marathon, I needed to hit 11 miles this week. I more so take that to mean that I need to run 110 minutes.

For some reason, I was thinking that I did 100 minutes the past two weeks (versus the 105 I actually did), so I was expecting to just need to run 110 minutes. As I was getting midway into the run, I realized that 110 minutes wasn't going to be enough, and I was trying to choose between 110 minutes or 12 miles. In the end, I decided to go with 12 miles which required 115 minutes.

My pace for the run ended up being actually the same as the past two weeks: 9:31 minutes/mile. Considering this run was farther and likely slightly harder, I'm happy that my pace didn't decrease. However, it would have been nice to see a slight increase considering the new shoes.

For the upcoming week, I plan to get back to my two 50 weekday runs. Not sure what I'm going to do for the weekend run. Probably should make this a baseline run of either 100 minutes or 11 miles. Probably the latter.

Eleven Miles Again

It was another hot week here in the Sacramento area, and with the high almost reaching 110 on Wednesday, I skipped out on the second weekday run of the week. Monday's run went well as I completed my 50 minutes at a slightly faster pace than my past three.

I once again did 11 miles on Saturday (11.1 to be exact). Pretty much finished at the same pace as last week. Hopefully I'll start to see my pace improve soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't improve until things cooled down.