Plan called for 5 miles at 8:51 and junk miles before and after to equal 8 total, also included 3X50 meter strides....which required me to go outside. Well. I'm a big fat wimp about the cold. I got everything ready the night before, then slept in...couldn't quite get away for as long as it would take to get in 8 miles without leaving my 11 year old home alone before school....just didn't want to do that, so I figured I could fit my run in at 3. Well. 3:00 rolled around and my boys were home and I was playing Mom, struggling to find my sunglasses, never found them, finally got out of the house at 3:30, went down to Walgreens, bought sunglasses and took off......then realized I only had 40 minutes of daylight left. The Gator occluded my breathing pretty well, so that by the time I was through with my 50 meter strides I was completely out of breath. Not used to breathing that cold air but took it off anyway after a mile or so, just to breathe. Still cold. I ended up doing 4 miles in 35:30...which is about right if I did the first mile in 9:56 and the other ones at 8:51, a little fast. Jumped in the Sequoia, drove home, changed clothes, and jumped on treadmill for a fast 5. Ended up doing a fast 4 with way too much left over so ramped up the speed for the last mile to 7.7 mph on the flat....I guess that's a little over 8 min a mile taking into account the lack of treadmill elevation. The other 4 miles I did only slightly too fast considering the 1% elevation.
I then cooled down....it took a while to slow down till I was almost 6 miles before I was below 8:51 pace, then the last mile (7) I did very, very slow. I am old. I must cool down very slowly. So I still feel great. We will see how I do Saturday for my "long" run of 12 miles. I'm still a little worried that I will too suddenly be increasing my miles and running faster and I won't be able to handle it. I have an easy week the week after this. I want to need it. My diet is going okay, not great. Don't know if I have lost any weight yet.
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