Training Day 6

Day 5 was a rest/cross train day. I guess I did more of a rest, but I did go on a short 1.75 walk with my son's dog. I had planned to go do some core/abs work at the gym, but I decided after the walk that I'd call it a day.

This morning I woke up around 5AM and rolled out of bed closer to 5:30. I went out and had my morning ritual of coffee and a banana before heading out for a short 4 mile recovery run. I ran the recovery run in two segments of 2 miles each as a workout on my Garmin watch to better keep the pace consistent. I managed to run the two segments within 4 seconds of each other.

I planned to keep the pace at around 10:30 pace, which is quite a bit slower than I'm used to. I ended up a bit faster than that with an overall pace of 10:24. I noticed around the half-way point that I was having to work a bit harder to keep the pace, which always bothers me while I'm running and I'm thinking "if I have to work for this...what about when I have to run a minute/mile faster?" That concern was short lived, however, and once the terrain leveled out a bit, I had to work to slow my pace. Once warmed up, it was very easy to keep the pace, and I coasted the last two miles, already thinking about the first medium-long run tomorrow morning.

The humidity this morning was very high, and even my tech shirt felt uncomfortable once I got to sweating. I think I'll do my run tomorrow morning shirtless for a chance and see if that relieves me of some of the discomfort.

Overall I feel great about the plan as the first week draws to an end. Tomorrow's twelve mile run would have had me anxious the day before the run last year, but I really look forward to the long runs more than any other now. There's something about going out and just running for a few hours that puts me at ease. I can listen to my podcasts without interruption, for one, which is impossible to do at work or even during the day at home. I also think I like the accomplishment of running long distances, as this is still new to me. A year ago, the longest I had ever run was the Aloha Run in the early 90s, and that was an 8.1 mile run. I have now had several dozen runs long than that, and I'll add another in the morning.