July 8 – 14

I decided that I want to get back into journaling about my runs to describe how I feel and see if I can track patterns in my training.  Here goes nothing.

Monday AM: 5.62 miles – 43:36 – Average Pace 7:46/mile

Drug my ass out of bed to get a jump on my mileage for today.  Schedule calls for 14 miles, but it is too hard to get that in one shot during the week.  I don’t want to sacrifice too much time with Christy, so on days like this, I will have to do things this way.  Nothing really special about this morning, but this was as far as I could get before having to head to work.  I just tried to keep an easy pace after my mileage the past few days.  6^th day in a row, so my legs are feeling it.

Monday PM: 8.01 miles – 1:21:34 – Average Pace 10:11/mile

April wanted to get some running in together and her schedule called for around 2 miles.  I took her over to the Trinity Loop Trail after work and we set off on a very easy run/walk pace.  For this portion of the run, I felt fine.  I am hoping that experiencing running on a trail will help to motivate April.  Once we finished the trail, April called it a day.  I threw my headphones in and headed off in the opposite direction on the Trinity Trail.  For the first 3 miles to the turn around, I felt pretty good, just keeping an easy pace and slogging through in the heat. (99 degrees at start)  However, once I turned around my body just shut down.  I think that I walked the next half mile just trying to recover.  I was really feeling a lack of energy and dizziness, which is something I am not accustomed to.  As I made it back to my truck, I realized that I was likely struggling due to the heat, combined with the fact that I failed to eat breakfast and lunch.  Definitely something I can’t continue doing if I am running 5-6 days per week plus lifting weights.  After I stopped at the store and got a sandwich and a Gatorade, I felt almost instantly better.

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Off

I had every intention of running today, but the crazy weather and power outage at work didn’t allow me to get home until almost 9pm.  Psh.

Friday AM: 8.11 miles – 1:11:09 – Average Pace 8:52/mile

Schedule called for 18 miles today.  I failed miserably on the first attempt.  Got started late and my body just wasn’t handling the heat. 84 degrees at the start and quickly heated up to the mid 90’s.  With the humidity, I was just not feeling it today.  I pushed through my usual 8 mile route and got back to the house for a refill on fluids.  I took a few minutes to cool off and stepped outside with the intention of hitting another 8 mile loop, but I found myself short on time.  Decided to cool it and thought I would run later.

Friday PM: 8.14 miles – 1:06:55 – Average Pace 8:13/mile

Tonight’s run felt a hell of a lot better.  Oddly enough, the starting temp was 100 degrees, but with the sun not burning the hell out of me, I fared reasonably well.  I’m not particularly happy with the splits being so inconsistent, but I gave it what I had.

Saturday: 10.05 miles – 1:31:27 – Average Pace 9:06/mile

Another day, another rough run.  84 degrees at start with 62% humidity was not what I would consider comfortable.  For the first 5 miles, I was feeling fairly decent.  My 6^th mile was pretty shitty.  I was really struggling along, trying to conserve my water in the blistering heat.  I got a second wind and made my way to a convenience store to get some more fluids.  I stopped outside for longer than I would have preferred, rehydrating and cooling off in the shade.  Slogged through the last of the run and called it a day.

Sunday: 11.20 miles – 1:23:23 – Average Pace 7:27/mile

Today was exactly what I needed to feel better about my week.  Until today, it felt pretty weak really.  Initially my plan was to go to the gym and spend 4 miles on the incline.  However, when I got home and the temp was 70 degrees and rainy, I chose to spend it outside.  I decided that I was going to run every step today which is a break from my last couple of runs where I walked some portions.  4 miles in and feeling good, I started heading back home and when I got to my street, I just kept on going.  The rain had me completely drenched and I was loving every minute of it.  I was feeling plenty of pep in my legs, surprisingly after getting into some higher mileage this week, and doing double days of training.  At about 11 miles in, I decided to call it quits.  I feel like I had some pretty solid miles.  First mile at 8:08 to warm up, and then no miles over 7:41.  I really didn’t push the pace at all, but these were just “comfortable” for today.  Now I’m hungry.

Total Weekly Mileage – 51.04

Training Time – 7:18:03

My only real curiosity about this week has to do with the benefit of splitting my daily mileage goal into multiple runs versus getting the long run in.  I would like to think that at some point, breaking the mileage into smaller chunks will help to reduce my chances of injury, and running multiple times during the day might help simulate the leg fatigue that I experience in the longer runs.  I know at some point, I better get some long runs in, but I hope this base building will benefit me.  Next week will be a good test, as I am planning a 50k run on Friday.