May 31st

...it's the end of May and it's the end of the work week. I have one more month of school left, leaving with twelve school days remaining.

I ended up doubling the runs today. I woke up at 5 to get a run in. My legs were tired from the workout from yesterday, but I was able to get the pace lowered throughout the run. I averaged 7:15 for eight miles.

Then during the day I went on a field trip to the Air and Space Museum. I had remarked that I haven't been in the museum in nearly 17 years. With the time of year that we are in now, it's overly crowded, and it was packed. Maybe it's because of my liberal arts degree, but I enjoyed the aspects of the museum of natural history more than this museum. The sciency sorts of things just aren't that interesting.

We did end up taking the metro to the museum, which meant that we were walking to and from the metro stations. That probably added my walking mileage to somewhere around three to four miles. Needless to say when I got home I was exhausted. I was tempted to take a nap when I got home, but I knew if I did that then I would be tired after waking up and not really be motivated to make something for dinner. I would call out for pizza. I ended up going for a run in the somewhat ninety degree weather. It wasn't that bad. I averaged 7:07 pace for four miles, and finished it off with four strides.

My mileage for May was the highest this year with 327.35. I'm still working things out and hope to improve over the summer.

May 30th

...running at five o'clock today, and it was an ozone alert orange day. Not particularly inspiring to do a workout in. There was already one factor against me. When I started my repeats there would be two more factors when I did the odd number repeats. The first quarter was on a gradual uphill and into the wind. With those three factoring in, I knew that the times I wanted to hit wouldn't really happen.

I was a bit disappointed not to run faster, but with the temperatures in the low nineties and the humidity present, but not on any level that I found awful. I ended up taking ninety seconds of rest in between each set. I ran six 800s and then did 2.75 of a cool down. I ran to a water fountain that extended the cool down. Then I did four strides in the alley.

My splits:
2:36- I was checking my splits after I got to the crest of the hill and it was about 5:23 pace at that point
2:33
2:37
2:34
2:41- this was the one where my goose was cooked. My legs were fried. Of course when I started the interval, there was a persistent wind howling in my face for the majority of the interval. I hung tough. I was about 5:33 at the quarter.
2:38

Overall not that bad considering the temperatures and my second workout in two weeks.

Tomorrow I get to go to the Air and Space Museum for a field trip. Fun time!

May 29th

...I went running close to six o'clock today. I had a meeting at work at five and didn't get home to about a quarter to six. I went out and ran, the weather wasn't oppressive, but it is starting to get warm. The humidity wasn't that bad (or maybe I'm just use to it being omnipresent). There wasn't much of a breeze to talk about, but I was pretty exhausted after the run. I was more dehydrated than anything. It was one of those feelings where I could taste the salt coming off my skin.

I ended up with the pace for ten miles under seven minutes. I'm not sure of the exact time, since the garmin was acting screwy on the way back. I ended up doing four strides in the alley after the run. I'm planning on doing 800s tomorrow, when the weather should be hotter. I'm hoping for low 2:30s and some 2:20s when I'm doing them. I'm not sure of the rest. I'm enjoying running once a day in the afternoon. I think my body is getting use to it. My legs no longer feel like jelly at the beginning of the run.

May 28th

...I woke up this morning and the pain that I had been suffering on the top of my left foot had persisted, so I opted to run after I got home from work in the late afternoon/early evening. I also was hoping that I could start to get better accumulated to the heat. I've been running with my shirt on whenever it's been hot, but the last couple days the weather has actually dipped down into the forties and low fifties.  Today it wasn't unbearable to go out and run. The temperatures were probably in the eighties, but there was hardly any humidity. Which coming from Charlotte, I'm glad that May is a month that is not considered summer. I know that in about a month I'm not going to be able to run with the weather not being so oppressive.

I wanted to actually run in the later afternoon, instead of doing my runs in the morning. I was planning on doing it next week, but with the pain in my foot coming up, I'll do it right now. It's not so bad. My goal for this week is to get close to eighty miles.

During the day, my left foot was giving me a slight pain and I was debating whether or not to actually run. I decided to run a quarter after five and there really wasn't any pain at all. I ended up running at seven minutes and five second pace for eight miles. I ended with four strides in the alley. I'm glad that I finished my run, because I could see ominous clouds overhead. They had been there for most of the run, but held off right till I got done with the last stride.

At school today, my co-teacher was out for the day, and honestly it's a testimony to my students, but there really wasn't a slip at all from them. It's really about the system and routine that has been put in place. I have fifteen days left my friends and it's going to be sad to see most of them leave. Actually after I get done writing this post, I'm going to write the last day of school's lesson plan.

One year ago

A year ago I ran the Vermont City Marathon. I also wrote about here on the blog. Neither of them were very good. I was off 10 minutes on my goal time. And I wrote most of the blog post dying from eating some tainted beef from Chiptole.  Looking back on my training log it should have been pretty obvious that I wasn't going to be running the time that I expected to.

Anyway it's time to start back this blog again. I may not have the readers as I did on the first version of Dinner's for Suckers.

After a week of easy running and taking my mileage down, it was time to get the mileage back up. I wanted to do a three mile tempo, to give myself a baseline of where I was. This was going to give me an idea of where my fitness was. One goal that I had in mind was to not dip into the well. Whatever my time was, that was what it was going to be. So if it was six minute pace, then it was six minute pace.

The weather was really nice and it was great to be out there when it was somewhat cool outside. I hit my miles in 5:35, 5:40, and 5:28. The second mile, running it in Rock Creek, is always a tad slow. I have to run on a little sidewalk over a bridge, where there is a quick turn, then run up some hills, and then cross a street. Other than that I felt fine. I didn't panic when my pace was 5:51 for mile two. Mile three was smooth. I know I could have really pushed it ten to fifteen seconds faster, but that was not part of the plan.

I ended up running ten miles. Time for the tempo was 16:43. Not a bad place to start off. I finished with four strides.