9.13 7 miles easy in 51 minutes. I started out close to 8 minutes per mile pace and slowly worked it down to 7. Very easy and felt fine, but I am still making sure not to overdo it after a high mileage and effort weekend.
9.14 11.5 miles in 73:43 (6:24 pace per mile overall). I ran this on the roads in some hilly sections and did it continuously without stopping. 2.5 miles in 17:53; 4 mile tempo in 22:15 (5:38, 5:37, 5:33, 5:27); 2.5 miles in 17:40, 2.5 miles in 15:55. This was pretty tough as I have not done a lot of tempo work--and the fact the tempo part was on some hills is very encouraging, as this was significantly faster than I even could have done in a race just 6 or 7 weeks ago.
I plan on doing one tempo run a week now and adding 1 mile to each tempo run to get it up to 8 miles if possible.
9.15 10 miles in 62:51. This was a great workout--I started off easy and just started to slowly pick it up and finished with a quasi-tempo run of 5 miles in 29:38. Lots of hills, too, so this was aserious run. My splits were 7:04, 6:43, 6:37, 6:23, 6:26 (33:13), 6:09, 6:03, 5:51, 5:54, 5:41 (29:38).
9.16 10 miles 76 minutes. I needed to take it easy today, but I want to continue piling the miles on. It is important I continue to build up my base. This was a little slower than 7:30 pace and it felt like I was walking. It is neat to see how things feel now as opposed to in June. I saw in my first post I was hoping to break 16:30 for a 5k by the end of the summer and now my goal is to break 15:30!
I am humbled and thankful my body still has it after almost 20 years of not really running at all and only dabbling in treadmill 3 mile runs the last couple of years, which did me no good. I love training and am happy I rediscovered my roots. Running is a great sport--and I love the camraderie with other runners when it is race day. I think most runners understand that we all work hard--whether you run a 15 minute 5k or a 30 minute 5k. All of us feel pain.
The fact that my son loves to run is cool, too. He came in 4th in his first middle school cross country race against 5th through 8graders and he is only in 5th grade! He is the real deal.
Even though I am trying to get really fast--and so is he--I keep reminding him that ultimately the race is against ourselves. It is Rob versus Rob and Gustave versus Gustave. You never lose a race if you try your hardest, whereas I believe you can run a poor race even if he technically "won." I simply want to run the best Rob can run--and for now--the sky may be the limit! However, I wont pack my bags for the Olympics just yet--LOL!
9.17 8 miles early afternoon in 60:22. 8 miles in early evening in 50:42--first 4 in 26:12, last 4 in 24:30. 16 miles total.
9.18 10 miles in 74:29---a 9 minute mile in there, too, as my youngest son ran with me!
9.19 9 miles am in 69:22. 6.5 pm--1 mile warm up, then 2000/1600/1200 with 400 recover jog inbetween. 6:29/5:07/3:47. 2 mile cool down. My legs felt heavy, but this is still an improvement over a month ago. I ran more miles this week than ever before, so I didnt expect much with tonight's track workout. I pretty much just wanted to go at a controlled fast pace without maximum effort.
80 miles this week--an all-time record.
As a youth, I ran, yet I did not exist in a sense. 19 years passed. Today, I exist in one sense because I must run. Perhaps I run to escape the futility of my existence. Perhaps not. In either case, this blog, or whatever it is, will serve to chronicle my training as a runner, my development as a man, and ultimately my demise as a human, because all things pass, fade, retreat into the horizon--and while we run, as we run, the mirage that is the shimmering, glimmering future continues to assert itself just out of reach. And yet, as this picture up above connotes, it may still be beautiful. And so the question may be what is IT? What is it? What is IT?
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