Long, Interesting Day

For some odd reason, I woke up at 5am this morning. I had set my alarm for 5:30am, hoping I'd be responsible enough to get up without hitting the snooze button (or reseting the alarm altogether). But at 5am I woke up and I was wide awake. I could have probably gone back to bed, but I knew if I did I wasn't going to wake up 30-minutes later. So I go up and goofed around at the house for a while before I decided to go ahead and go to the track.

I had been planning a 1500m Time Trial for a while now, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to doing it. I had been enjoying myself on my mileage runs and they were feeling easy again, but I decided to go ahead and do it this morning. I went through the warm up feeling pretty good and I was excited about what I might be able to run. I figure I was probably in shape to run between 5:15 and 5:20 if I felt good, the weather was decent, and if I was able to find a way to push myself running solo. I hit the first 400m in 86.9, followed by a 84.6. I slowed a bit to 86.8, hitting the 1200m mark in 4:18.3. This is the exact same time I hit during a 1200m Time Trial at the end of June. I ran my last 300m in 63.1 for a total time of 5:21.5. While I was little slower than what I thought I could run, I figured this was satisfactory given the fact I haven't done any repetition running in the last few weeks. It was also a solo effort. I'll take it. For good measure, I went and spent some time on the elliptical immediately after finishing my cool down. I've been spending about 5-6 hours a week on the elliptical. I find it gives me a good workout without leaving me exhausted for my run the follow day.

I went out to the park this afternoon for an easy 5 miles. I haven't run out at the state park much in the past month, and didn't run there much before that. It didn't take me long before I realized why I hadn't been out there much. I HATE RUNNING IN THE STATE PARK! While the trees do provide shade from the scorching sun, they also block whatever breeze may be blowing. I also can't stand running in the sand. I feel like I expend a lot of energy and never make much progress. The next time I run at the state park it'll be too soon. I'm going to stick to the roads for a while.