LM warmup, 8.9 miles in 1:06:10, 7:25/mi, w/ 2 miles warmup, 2 x 15 min tempo intervals at 6:48/mi, 6:33/mi avg pace & 4 min break, w/2 miles cooldown, 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, and stretching.

Overcast and cool (61F).  Not so sleepy tired today but a bit worn-out.  Didn't really feel like going running, much less running tempo intervals, but a training plan is a training plan, so..... First one was supposed to be HM pace, second 10K pace.  Goal was to run the 2nd one faster at the least, since the terrain around here isn't exactly flat.  First one was right at current HM pace, which means I ran it a bit fast since there was a bit more uphill than downhill.  Second was slower than 10K pace by 7 sec/mi, and had a touch more downhill, so faded a bit but a decent effort.  Plus, the last few minutes of the 2nd interval, had some gastro issues that prevented me from pushing the pace anymore than I did....as it was the pit-stop came just in time.  Tomorrow is a much needed off day.

LM warmup, 13 miles in 1:38:52, 7:36/mi, with last 4 miles moderate in 6:56 (down), 7:23 (up), 6:51 (down), 7:04 (up).  1 mile cooldown walk with dogs & stretching.

Cold and gloomy (45F).  No energy and just blah day.  Really didn't feel like running, but once I got going it was okay.  Didn't really feel good the entire time, but the pace was good and the last 4 miles weren't overly hard.

LM warmup, 6 miles in 47:36, 7:56/mi, w/ 10 x 10 sec Hill Sprints at mile 3 hill.  1.5 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Sunny and pleasant (55F).  Still feeling a bit tired but better today.  Hill sprints felt nice and strong.

LM warmup, 8.25 miles in 1:05:50, 7:58/mi, w/ 2.64 mile warmup, 1 set of Strides/Drills, 6 x 90 second Hill Repeats on mile 3 hill, 2.6 mile cooldown, 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, & stretching.

Sunny and cool (61F).  Start of a recovery week.  Took a bit to get moving today.....pace pretty slow the first couple of miles.  Hill repeats went pretty well although 90 seconds on this hill was tough.  Will be needing it for the 10K on Friday....monster hill right in the middle of the race.

LM warmup, 8 miles in 1:02:16, 7:47/mi, 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, & stretching.

Sunny and pleasant (62F).  Legs tired but since tomorrow's an easy day, I pushed into easy+ range.  

LM warmup, 6 miles in 47:50, 7:58/mi, w/ 10 x 10 sec Hill Sprints at mile 3 hill, 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, & stretching.

Sunny and pleasant (62F).  Legs tired today.  Hill sprints were all strong, but it took until #4 for the turnover to really get going, and then I was moving.....had to move my marker sticks a bit further up the hill so I know about when 10 seconds is up :).

LM warmup, 10.02 miles in 1:15:00, 7:29/mi, with 3 miles warmup, 1 set of Drills, 2 sets of Strides, 4 miles tempo in 6:53 (up), 7:10 (up), 6:23 (down), 6:22 (down) for a 6:42/mi average, 3 miles cooldown.  1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Sunny and pleasant (62F).  Tired today....tough just to get out of bed and never really felt like I woke up.  Legs tired on the run, so I was dreading the tempo portion; luckily since this is a recovery week, only 4 miles.  Strides were pretty anemic.  Actually ran the tempo portion pretty well, although the 2nd uphill mile really drained my leg energy.  Some tightness in my hamstrings after the run that I will need to watch.

LM warmup, 4 miles in 31:44, 7:56/mi.  2 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Overcast & cool (55F).  Easy run before tomorrow's 10K.  Suffering from something I did to my neck the other day...varying degrees of pain just to turn my head.  Hopefully it'll keep improving before tomorrow.  Now onto the lawn tractor.

LM, then 2 mile warmup in 16:00, 8:00/mi.  10K in 39:08, 6:17/mi.  2 mile cooldown in 16:41, 8:20/mi.

Sunny and cool (45-50F).  Not enough sleep and tired this morning.  Cold (30s) prior to the race but when the sun came out, perfect.  Would love to run a 39 min 10K, knowing that some beastly hills awaited me.  Felt like crap during the warmup, especially the 0.5 tempo, so normal.  At the gun, away and feeling good.  Garmin and course splits off from the beginning (6:05 course versus 6:17 garmin), so not sure what use the splits are, but....6:17, 6:18, 7:08, 6:59, 5:52, 6:11, and 0:23.  Guess where the hills were?

Felt very good for the first 1.5 on the flats...at the 5K/10K split, was kinda wishing I'd run the 5K instead, because I think I might've been able to beat my 5K PR (18:48) if I poured it on in the 2nd half.  The first hill greeted me just prior to the 2 mile mark and went straight up.  Reduced to a shuffle, quads burning pretty quickly, respiration near the max, yeah, good hill training.  Leveled off after ~ 150', a short relatively flat stretch, then up another 75' or so, then back down 75', passing the mile 3 mark on the way back down.  Not even looking at the watch now, just trying to get up the dang hills.  Next hill went up another 100+' on an ever so slightly less steep gradient, but painful nonetheless.  Then thru some rollers in the cemetery with plenty of twists and turns that at least had me focused more on tangents than the pain.  Managed to catch the 3rd place guy here, who ever so casually mentions I must've been working on hills and he wishes he hadn't gone mountain biking yesterday.  What's that?  I can't hear you over the air I'm choking in and out of my lungs!  3.5 marks a mile and a half of progressively steeper downhill with brief flat stretches, usually to make turns.  The last section was so steep it undoubtedly pushed me to the sub-6 pace despite my legs being shredded, but it definitely finished them off.  Another more gentle uphill stretch to the final downhill and onto another mile or so of flat to the finish.  

Could feel the guy I'd passed to take 3rd just stalking me for the last mile, he moves closer and I start really putting the hurt on myself trying not to get passed with around 0.5 left, although I really don't know exactly how much and don't have the energy to look at the watch.  Missed the 6 mile mark but it was probably around there he finally put the move on and passed me.  Not taking kindly to being passed that late in the race, I made some desperate attempt to catch and re-pass him to the finish to no avail (although I think I might've made him actually speed up a tad towards the end.  So a 4th place overall and 2nd in my age group (later, I found out the 3rd place guy was in the 20-29 AG, so no wonder!).

So, a nice tidy PR of 56 seconds over my previous best 10K (also the last 10K I'd run, nearly 2 years ago).  Probably worth quite a bit more on a flat course.  Oh, and I did manage to see I'd hit the 5K in around 19:15, which was after monster hill #1, so I'm pretty sure I had a 5K PR in me today.  This race has me wondering if I should perhaps punt on the marathon's for a while and enjoy the shorter races for a time?  Just a thought.

Treated myself to a mondo burrito, so now, off to change and get to work out in the yard.

--Update --

Wow, I suddenly got must faster.  The city of Puyallup just posted the "official" results and somehow I've now run a 38:08 10K.  Must be something to do with the space-time continuum and the cemetery in the 10K course.  I now also have taken 1st in the 30-39 AG, but remain 4th overall, so someone else suffered different effects and got older.  The guy I finished on the heels of supposedly finished in 37:36.  If he had 32 seconds on me, I'll eat my hat.  Or since I'm not wearing one, I'll eat the closest one I can find.

Obviously, the results are crap.  I should just let it drop and not worry about it, but the OC in me must send a note pointing out the obvious errors.  I'm sure by the time we're done, I'll be DQ'ed!

LM warmup, 4 miles in 30:54, 7:43/mi, 2 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, & stretching.

Overcast and cool (51F).  A nice long 4 hour warmup taking up sod in the yard.  Yuck.  Oops, didn't mean to run that fast today....guess the horses were running for the barn, so to speak.  The beginnings of some quad soreness, so the roller comes out again tonight.

LM warmup, 10 miles in 1:18:03, 7:48/mi,, HR 153, 1 mile cooldown walk/jog w/ dogs, & stretching.

Cloudy and windy (55-61F).  Soreness has set into my left calf, hamstrings, glutes, adductors, and quads, to varying degrees, from Sunday's race.  Unfortunately, my back and shoulders are already sore from yesterday's sod removal project.  Somehow, I managed to get going in the face of all that plus some quite gusty headwinds for the first few (uphill, of course) miles and some gloomy clouds and wounds up having a good run.  Now, if that which hasn't yet killed me is making me stronger, I'll be a real he-man after today.

LM warmup, 6 miles in ~ 47:36, 7:56/mi, HR 148, w/ 10 x 10 sec hill sprints at mile 3 hill. 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Light rain (56F).  Legs still sore, especially hamstrings and adductors.  Easy effort today, excluding the hill sprints, when were nice and strong.  Time estimates were because garmin decided not to like the weather and stopped responding twice, so even the 10 sec sprints were estimates.....if anything, I went over, not under.  Hope the legs get better for tomorrow's tempo intervals.

LM warmup, 8.96 miles in 1:04:56, 7:15/mi, HR 161, with 2 mile warmup, 2 x 15 min tempo intervals at 6:31/mi (HR 171) and 6:20/mi (HR 175) average paces (3 min rest), and 2 mile cooldown.  1.25 mi cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Overcast and pleasant (56F).  Legs felt better today.  Normal pre-tempo trepidation.  Tempo interval one felt good until the uphill section hit, then got pretty tough, especially towards the end.  A tad uphill overall with one 180 turn.  Was aiming to hit 6:39/mi (current predicted HM pace), so it was a bit too fast.  Oops.  Second tempo interval got hard pretty quickly, but kept positive attitude and focused on relaxed, strong form.  Really got hard on the later uphill stages where I slowed.  Missed the target pace (6:17/mi - predicted 10K pace), probably in the last 3-4 minutes on the uphill where I slowed more than I liked.  But, this workout shows a GREAT improvement over 2 weeks ago where I ran a 6:48/mi and 6:33/mi over the same stretch of road, so this was a great workout.  I even felt pretty decent afterwards during the cooldown and stretching.

So, lessons learned from today.  Need to get my mind out of the way sometimes and to let myself believe.  Must hold back a bit more on the first one.   Good workout.

LM warmup, 4 miles in 31:20, 7:50/mi, HR 153, followed by 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs.

Rainy but warm (64F).  Attempting to transition to running 7 days/week, so today is a very easy run day.

LM warmup, 14 miles in 1:44:48, 7:29/mi, HR 156, with last 2.5 miles hard in 3:10 (down), 6:08 (down), and 6:43 (up).  2.5 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Rainy (64F).  Nasty weather....showers, downpours, thunder, sun, wind, and just plain old rain.  First 6 miles uphill into the state forest, with last 1.5 gaining ~300'.  Legs started feeling tired by mile 8, so the last 2.5 hard was going to be a real treat.  Managed good pace for downhill portion of hard running, but the last mile it felt like I had lead weights for legs, breathing rate went to as fast as possible, and speed slowed way down.  Dunno how I managed a 6:43 mile....it felt like double that.  I'll take it.

LM warmup, 6 miles in 47:23, 7:54/mi, HR 148, w/ 12 x 10 sec Hill Sprints at mile 3 hill, 1.5 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs.

Legs tired.  Hill repeats strong but not explosive.  Soreness after yesterday's run is mostly gone.

LM warmup, 11.51 miles in 1:31:49, 7:58/mi, HR 145, 3 mile warmup, 2 sets of Strides/Drills, 8 x 2 min Hill Repeats, and 3.34 mile cooldown.

Misty & cool (53F).  Hard repeats today.  Legs started really feeling the burn on #4; lungs earlier.  Felt an unwelcomed twinge in left hip/groin on #8, but seems to have been transient.  No time for dog walking cooldown today.

LM warmup, 11 miles in 1:24:31, 7:41/mi, HR 153, w/ 1.25 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs.

Legs (and body) were tired today, but got all eleven in a good clip. Tomorrow I need to get some stretching in too!

LM warmup, 6 miles in 46:04, 7:40/mi, HR 148, with 12 x 10 sec Hill Sprints at the mile 3 hill.  1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Got rained on a bit towards the end and on the walk (57F).   Left hip/groin bugged me some for the first mile or so.  Felt really strong on the hill sprints.  Pretty quick & strong pace all around.

LM warmup, 12 miles in 1:28:19, 7:21/mi, HR 157 with 2 x Strides/Drills & middle 6 Tempo @ HM effort in 6:58 (up), 7:18 (up), 7:20 (up), 6:24 (down), 6:27 (down), 6:29 (down); overall tempo average 6:49/mi.  1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Overcast and cool (51F). Uneventful warmup.  Felt decent on strides & drills.  Aimed for 6:39/mi average tempo pace, but knew it'd be difficult as this tempo would gain about 400' elevation over the first 3 miles and lose it coming back.  What I didn't plan on was the interruptions.....neighbor out for a walk w/ 2 dogs off-lease doesn't have control so I lost a handful of seconds in the 2nd mile while she corralled them as they nipped at my heels.....a near critical pit stop in 5th mile (and another just after the tempo was completed).  Despite everything and not quite hitting the target pace it was a good tough tempo run and I probably would've hit the pace average on level ground.  Finally got some much needed stretching in afterwards, but I'll really need to give my hamstrings some stretch work since they are tight.  Now onto recovery.

LM warmup,4 miles in 31:47, 7:56/mi, HR 145, 1.5 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Overcast and cool (55F).  Recovery day today....the hardest part was not looking at my watch the entire run and just running easy.  Leg definitely needed the easy day today.  Walk w/ the dogs was really nice though.  Plus, the stretching afterwards felt much better than yesterday, and the hip/groin pain from after yesterday's run was nearly completely gone.

LM warmup, 14.1 miles in 1:51:15, 7:53/mi, HR 147, w/ 4 mile warmup, 15 x 90 sec @ 10K effort, 90 sec easy, 4 mile cooldown, then stretching.

Cold (38-41F).  This one hurt.  Got up early since today's going to be busy...legs didn't want to go and warmup miles were slower than normal.  Repeats went pretty well....got tired on the ones headed uphill but once on the flat felt better and got some good speed on the downhill.  Once the repeats were over, realized my legs were trashed and easy wasn't going to be easy.  Limped thru the last 4 miles (pit-stop at ~ 12 mi mark).  Stretching afterwards with some pain back in the left hip.  This one left me wiped out....hopefully some food will help.

LM warmup, 6 miles easy in 47:56, 7:59/mi, HR 140 with 12 x 10 sec Hill Sprints at mile 3 hill.  2 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs.

Cool (51F).  Felt pretty decent the first 3.  Good set of hill sprints, all strong (after the 1st one, which is always a dog).  Last 3 miles felt the sprints in my legs, but okay.

LM warmup, 11.35 miles in 1:26:43, 7:38/mi, HR 153.  3 miles warmup, 2 sets of Strides/Drills, 8 x 3 min 10K, 2 min easy, 3 miles cooldown.  1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Cool and scattered rain (47F).  Legs still a bit tired on the warmup and on the strides/drills.  Surprisingly, the repeats went very well, even after I figured I'd gone out way too hard on the first one...average pace was 6:07 (target flat 10K is 6:17), even though 5 repeats were uphill and only 3 down.  Legs were really tired by the end, but a brief stop to chat with a neighbor with 1.5 left made the last part of the cooldown easier (and faster).  Encouraging workout, much different from Saturday.

LM warmup, 12 miles in 1:33:57, 7:49/mi, HR 149, 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Partly cloudy and cool (47F).  Tired legs today; otherwise uneventful.

LM warmup, 6 miles in 47:45, 7:57/mi, HR 147, with 12 x 10 sec Hill Sprints at mile 3 hill, 1.5 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs and stretching.

Cool (45F).  Legs still pretty tired.  Body too.....managed to sleep a good 1/2 hr past my alarm this morning and vivid dreams....always indicative of deep sleep for me.  Unremarkable hill sprints.

LM warmup, 11.24 miles in 1:23:54, 7:27/mi, HR 152, with 3 mile warmup, 2 sets of Strides/Drills, 3 x 10 minute Tempo Intervals w/ 2 min rest with 6:35, 6:29, and 6:07 average paces, and 3 miles cooldown.  Followed with 1 mile walk w/ dogs, short PU/crunches ladder & stretching.

Chilly (47F).  Legs still tired....I think the amount of fast running I've been doing with the mileage at the upper limit of what I've done in the past year has me pretty near my recovery limit.  In any event, today's goal was 2 intervals at HM pace and the 3rd at 10K pace.  Out and back (one 180 degree turn in each), "relatively" flat with the uphill on the return.  Based on recent workouts, I'm certain my predicted HM pace (6:39/mi) and 10K pace (6:17/mi) are too slow; so I decided to make sure I could nail the first one, then push the paces for the next 2.  Ideally, I'd be close to 6:26/mi for my HM pace and 6:06/mi for my 10K pace.  Happily, I got really close to both on some tired legs.

Decided to run a race this Sunday (still deciding between another 10K or a 5K), so I'm moving my 12 miler to tomorrow, an easy run Saturday, then the race on Sunday, with some additional adjustments for next week.  Really excited to see what I can run on a flat course.

LM warmup, 12 miles in 1:32:06, 7:40/mi, HR 154, 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, PU/Crunches Ladder (3 steps), & stretching.

Warm (58F).  Very overdressed, so this was a heat-training run.  Rain resistent jacket merely kept the hot air and sweat inside.  Legs felt pretty good today, even after yesterday's threshold sessions, so I took advantage and pushed the pace a tad throughout the run.  Really, I pushed the legs to take larger, fuller strides, to work the leg muscles more.  Nice and tired by the end.  Tomorrow's the rescheduled easy day, followed by a race Sunday.  Now I just have to pick between the 5K and 10K. 

LM warmup, 4 miles in 31:42, 7:55/mi, HR 142, 2 mile walk w/ dogs, & stretching.

Nice easy run to keep loose, followed by a day in the car looking at kitchen remodel stuff.