Long Trail Run

Met up with a great crew at Francis Beatty Park for my first run ever there. I'm not a big fan of trails but enjoy the change of scenery from time to time. It was fun and my legs got a good bit of time under them without doing too much damage on the soft stuff. Also used muscles that don't typically get recruited on normal runs- maybe sore tomorrow!

We did three loops in 51, 45 and 44 minutes, no idea of mileage but we guessed at just over 6 for each loop. Girls were cranking it on loops two and three, their lighter weight and lower centers of gravity a big advantage over lanky uncoordinated me!

We'll see if I can close this week out with a half decent workout tomorrow. Whatever I will hit 80 plus for the first ever time- all in singles!

Mcalpine recovery

Not much to say about today's run except I had good company (Jay, Aaron, Brian and Chris) and the pace was nice and chilled for the 9 mile loop we did. Looking forward to the weekend!

Booty Loop Tempo

The Booty Loop is probably the best known outdoor fitness location in Charlotte. It winds around one of the more exclusive residential areas in Charlotte and offers runners and cyclists relatively safe and hilly terrain. Everyone knows about the Booty Loop. This weekend sees the 24 hours of Booty eventa Cancer fund raising event named specially after the loop. Here it was this morning that myself and Caitlin's crew did our respective workouts.
They were doing 3*3 mile, I had 8m AT Tempo on the schedule.

Despite the loop's notoriety, I had in fact never run the loop before! Portions of it yes but not the whole thing. As we headed off on our respective workouts up Queens Road West I had to confirm the route I was supposed to take as I pulled away from the group- they were running just over 6 minute pace, me just below 6 minutes.

I had a good workout, the terrain is ideal for a good hard tempo run with a mile of uphill followed by a flat mile finishing with a downhill mile. I did 2 loops (just under 6 miles) and headed into Freedom Park to finish it off on some flatter terrain! I was pretty zapped by the time I made it back to the Dowd but sitting here now a few hours later I feel fine and ready to close out the week over the next three days

Indecision

Legs started feeling as if they were coming round yesterday evening so I planned to do a workout this morning. However, with others doing a workout Thursday I also had the option of taking another 'easy' day and pushing the workout back a day so that I could have some company. I still hadn't 100% decided what I wanted to do as I left the house this morning! I had my flats on but as I was warming up for a potential workout I made the decision to just get an easy run in and be ready to hit a workout hard tomorrow. The legs felt decent at last and hopefully I'm fully recovered from the race now. I'd better be with 44 miles and 2 workouts planned over the next 4 days....

Fantastic news from Barcelona yesterday where the Brits swept Gold and Silver at the European Championships 10k. People are actually moaning that these were only the European Championships and there were no Africans (or Americans!) present but who cares they still won and is a great boost to British endurance running. Of course they are never going win medals on the World stage but seeing them on the top of the podium at these Championships will hopefully prove inspirational for other runners and kids who are starting to run. Good job Mo and Chris and good luck in the 5k!!

Miners' Run

Hadn’t done the Miners Run for a while. Typically Tuesday is a workout day for me so although I often see the Miners every Tuesday I rarely get to run with them much. Ironic today then that I only got to run with three miners and 2 of them did their own workout. Still it was good to chat to Brian for the bulk of the run and an ‘easy’ way to get some good miles in. More miles than anticipated in fact as having run up to PDS (just over 2 miles) I reset my watch so when I looked at my watch during my ‘second run’ and added on some miles to get to my planned 10 I had now in fact run over 12. Not really what my knackered legs would have liked but this gets me 2 ahead of schedule in what is planned to be a record breaking week- might need those extra miles in the bank later in the week!

As I said, my legs still feel pretty beat up since the weekend! I’m still trying to decide which days I am going to get my workouts and long run in but don’t want to force anything- we’ll see how I wake up in the morning….

A run of two halves

Needing to make up for my missed long run yesterday I emailed a plea for some company on today's 16 miler. Luckily Jay came up with the goods. I was going to run to Lauren's house, pick him up and run back to mine so he could get his 8 in and I'd give him a ride home. So at 4.45am I left the house and headed off towards Providence Road. It was miserable! Even by recent standards the humidity felt ridiculous (it later transpired that the dew point had read 76- according to coach's blog this meant conditions were "very uncomfortable, fairly oppressive") and after 4 miles I was already thoroughly drenched and dehydrated. This, coupled with my tummy not feeling great meant for a death march along Providence. Luckily though Lauren's church had some sprinklers going off full tilt so I was able to stop there and stand in the water for a couple of minutes. Then I met Jay and he had a nice chilled bottle of water ready for me. A few gulps of that and a ceremonial dump of the remainder over my head and I was starting to perk up a bit. The run home was far more tolerable and I thoroughly appreciated Jay's contribution!

Legs are still very sore from Saturday so I'm going to continue to take it day by day as to when I will get my workouts in this week. The schedule I have set myself will have me hitting 80 miles in a week for the first time ever....

Week in review

60 miles(goal 70), 7 runs (no 'long'), a successful 6*1600 workout and 4m race

80 miles, an AT Tempo and LT Tempo workout, and two long runs on the agenda next week.