Everything Counts

7.45 Miles @ 6:22 pace.  Finally, I am able to get a decent run in!  My knee is getting better and wasn't painful today, only slightly uncomfortable the last 1.5 miles.  Hopefully it's on the way to full recovery and I can put a horrible month of June running behind me and move forward.  I did a 400 Meter pickup up the main hill on my course today in 75 and then picked up the last 800 Meters in 2:31.

5.03 miles @ 7:02 pace.  I tried to keep the pace easy this morning, as this was my first back-to-back days of running since mid-June.  I wasn't sure how the knee would respond, so I went short and easy.  The knee held up fine and wasn't even uncomfortable at all during the run, so that's a huge relief. 

I didn't have high hopes for this race after how poorly I ran last Saturday.  The goal was similar to Saturday, just run hard and pick up some circuit points.

Showed up 45 minutes early, warmed up 2 miles with Ken Richardson and Albert Wint.

The course was mostly run on State Street in Murray.  The first mile is uphill then you turn around and come back down and the third mile is uphill for the first half and downhill for the second half.

I knew it would be a competitive race.  Teren Jameson, Jamal Tongo, Nate Hornock, Ken Richardson, and Albert Wint are all very good runners.  The race started and Teren, Ken, Jamal, and two high schoolers got out very quickly.  I settled into 6th place and ran the first mile in 5:13.  I passed the two high schoolers right around the mile mark.  Ken, Jamal, and Teren were like 4:50 for that first mile (uphill!).  Nate caught up to me just at the turnaround and we ran the next half mile mostly together.  Nate gapped me by about 4 seconds at 1.5 miles.  Up ahead I could see Teren pulling away, Jamal in second, and Ken somewhat coming back to us.  The second mile was 5:01.

Nate got up to maybe 7 seconds on me by 2.5 miles.  Ken was about 15 seconds up.  We approached a sharp right turn and Ken glanced back and saw Nate and I were closing and he threw in a surge to keep his lead.  At 2.9 I had closed on Nate and the gap was 4-5 seconds.  I decided it was time to go to the closet, find my old wheels from my days running the mile, dust them off, and see if they still worked!  I started kicking hard (somewhere in here I hit mile 3 but was too busy kicking to see my pace, later I found out it was 5:04) Nate turned back and saw me after the crowd got louder and he started sprinting.  I found yet another gear and went into 100 meter all out sprint.  I ended up getting him by 3-4 seconds for 4th place.  My last .15 was 34 seconds or 3:44 mile pace! I figure my last 400 was sub-60.

Total time was 15:54 (though I had 15:52 and it was hand timed so who's to say who was more accurate) for 3.15 miles (at least according to my garmin).

So the race went alot better than I expected after how poorly Saturday went.  What a difference just two days of running makes! The best news of the day was my knee didn't bother me at all!

3.35 mile cooldown with Ken.  Teren and Nate joined us for part of it as well.

Got home and did my 10.5 minute ab workout.

7.5 miles @ 6:27 pace.  Met Ken early before work on base for an easy 7.5 mile run.  It was pretty windy this morning.  We picked up 400 meters on the main uphill again in 73 seconds.  Other than that just a nice easy morning run.  Finished up with 10.5 minutes of ab workout.

5.21 miles @ 6:42 avg pace.  Got an easy run in at lunch.  I had considered cross training as a precaution with the knee, but decided to just do an easy, short run instead.  The weather wasn't too bad for July mid-day.  Did some light leg lifting and 10.5 minute ab workout afterwards.

MOUNTAIN RUN!

15.78 miles @ 8:24 avg pace.  Up at 4 am and started running at 5.  Ran up Ben Lomond Peak with Ken, Jon, Bryant, and Ben.  This was Ben's second ascent in three days! Crazy kid that one!  He was a bit fatigued and told us to just go.  We waited for him on top.  Beautiful morning to run up there!  We hit the summit just after sunrise. Cold on top but the cool breeze was awesome on the descent once the sun was up.  We gained 3,780 feet in the first 7.9 miles and then dropped that much on the way down.  Awesome run, we need to run it more often.  I haven't run this mountain since like 2005, it was nice to run it again.