Night Running

I recently had the honor of joining the PVJH cross-country coaching staff. I coached two years ago but then entered graduate school, and there was no way I was going to try to take two classes and coach. This semester, though, I am down to one class, so I jumped at the chance to coach again. I love it. Cross-country gives me the chance to get out of school, do a bit of running, and see the kids in a different setting. There are close to 100 runners on the team, so one more body was needed to help wrangle them in!

Today was a tempo day for the runners, and I took the kids who need to work on running continuously. I stood between the two ball fields and yelled "Go!" and "Stop!" The great thing about this was that I could see all of the kids and encourage them as they came around. The bad thing was that I couldn't do any running of my own. Therefore, when I got home I talked David into taking Sam to the dog park so I could run and meet him there. Since the jh kids did a tempo workout today, I figured I'd try something like one too.

My splits were as follows:  Total distance - 6.0 miles. Total time:  50:55. Average pace - 8:29.

Mile 1 - 8:19

Mile 2 - 8:11

Mile 3 - 8:10

Mile 4 - 8:50

Mile 5 - 8:35

Mile 6 - 8:48

Now, in my defense, the route I chose is uber-hilly. I mean, after three miles, it's pretty much all uphill. I ran from home to the bike path, got off at Devil's Glen Road, and then ran to the dog park at Crow Creek. I considered the last mile and a half as a faster cool down. 

This was a solid run. I felt great the entire time and I tried to push the hills. I signed up for the 5-mile at the Run with Carl and I'm confident I will push myself. 

As my watch was locating satellites, a neighbor and his son were out for a walk and we had a nice chat. The boy rode up to the corner on his tricycle and yelled, "Hi! Hey, hi! Do you want to pet my dog?" I hesitated because I wanted to get going, but after a moment I agreed. I'm so happy I did. We chatted about his dog, his new bike that he got for his fourth birthday, and his sweet seahorse temporary tattoo. 

This past week I had a 40 mile week - all running miles. I'm really proud of myself. I don't know if I've ever run that much in one week, and that was with Monday off. My long run of 16 miles I ran on Saturday morning, meeting up with Leslie for ten miles of it. I'm more of a lone runner when it comes to shorter runs, but I love running with people on my long runs; the conversation makes the miles fly by. David needed to get in a long run of six miles on Sunday, which was a perfect way for me to get the lactic acid out of my legs. I'm hoping to get in another solid week of running. David is really upping his mileage and has been awesome at getting in his workouts.

If you haven't already, please check out my LU Race Team page. I have less than a month left to reach my goal of raising $700 for charities around the Quad Cities. I'm getting close, but I'm not quite there yet. Click on my badge below to get to my page. Thank you so much for your support!