Feeling good

I had to take Monday off because of the kids, but I made up for the day of rest yesterday. After I dropped the kids off I went to the bugline trail and cranked out 8 good miles. I originally went into this run thinking I would do just 7:00 minute miles, but I decided to switch things up a bit. Instead of doing my faster workout on Wednesday, I elected to do it now. My rational was to do the faster miles on the crushed gravel which is what I'll be racing on next weekend. My splits were are follows:

Mile 1 - 6:22 (Started out slow - 6:45 - but picked it up once I determined I was going to run a little faster for this run. Took about 3/4's of a mile to really get warmed up)

Mile 2 - 5:55 (Felt great during this mile. The legs were hitting on all cylinders and I felt like I could go at this pace for awhile)

Mile 3 - 6:49 (I went into this mile thinking I'd do 2 fast, two recovery, 2 fast and 2 recovery. I felt like I was plopping along. The legs wanted to "go")

Mile 4 - 6:42 (It was hard keeping this mile in check. All I could hear was Matt saying "slow it down".)

Mile 5 - 5:34 (I was sucking wind after this mile, but damn it felt good. Way too fast, but it felt good.)

Mile 6 - 6:07 (I found myself going below 6 on a few occasions during this split. I had to "force" myself to hit a 6:07 - - - - very good sign)

Mile 7 - 6:27 (Same issue as mile 6. The legs just wanted to go. I could have maintained a faster pace during this mile, but I knew I was going to open it back up for the last mile)

Mile 8 - First 1/2 mile in 5:51. The second 1/2 mile in 6:08. Once again, I could have maintained the sub 6 for the whole mile, but I decided to back down abit and get it back to the marathon pace - - - when I say marathon pace, my 'I would be thrilled if I hit this pace'/Gold standard is an average of 6:08

Overall, this was a GREAT run. I've found over the past 4 weeks that coming off of a rest day I've done pretty well.

Then this morning I woke up at 5:00 and went to the gym. I set the treadmill at a 7:30 pace and did 8 miles. The legs were a little stiff and didn't want to be on the treadmill, but overall will thank me for the recovery run.

Only 10 days left until race day - - - I'm getting excited