Ran a little longer today. Felt like I needed to after not running since Thursday. Never did make it down to the skatepark, since it stayed wet all weekend. Today’s loop went at a 8.85 minute pace. Seems like I could’ve gone a little faster, but there was a section in there where I was really breathing hard and it just didn’t seem like I could move my legs much quicker.

Didn’t run yesterday or today. Yesterday was a legit rest day, but today I worked hard moving lots of (heavy) furniture. Just got back from moving a pipe organ up to the second floor of someone’s house! There were six of us moving that thing–it was heavy!

Tomorrow I’ll probably go skate in the morning. Also an excellent cardio/leg workout. Might take a run in the afternoon. Maybe Monday I’ll hit the track again to try out the 5k on the flats. Monday night I go to Boise and come back on Wednesday. I’ll take my shoes and try to be disciplined enough to run in the mornings. It’s tough, though, since I tend to stay up way too late when I’m traveling. We’ll see.

I decided to run at the track this morning to see if I could do 3.25 miles with sub 8-minute miles. I had it all figured out that I needed to basically run each lap faster than 2 minutes. I didn’t account for the fact that the outside lane of the track is .025 longer than the inside lane. Doesn’t sound like much, but after four laps you’ve run 1.10 miles rather than 1 mile.

So I was running fast and hard and my first lap was 1.52 minutes. My second lap was 2.08 and I started to get discouraged (still thinking that I was running standard 1/4 mile laps). The third lap was 2.04 and the fourth lap was 2.04 also, for a total of 8.10 for four laps. I stopped after the fourth lap thinking that there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t break an 8 minute mile. As I left the track, I read about the lane lengths. I did some calculations as I ran home and figured that I actually ran faster than I thought: 7.36/mile. That’s a relief, since I was aiming at the high 7’s for the full three miles. I’ll go back on Saturday or Sunday and run the full length, which’ll be 3.3 miles if I do 12 laps on the outside lane. In order to break 8 minute miles, I’ll need to run each lap faster than 2.08 minutes. We’ll see how that goes…

Didn’t really stretch this morning, at least not in the usual way. I went down to where I run sprints and did some light stretching there. Definitely not my 10 minute routine. Worked okay, though. No torn or sprained parts.

Ran the 3.2 mile loop this morning at a 8.49 minute/mile pace. I’m pretty sure I can get below 8 if I do a better job of pacing myself. I push hard at the beginning and then I’m wasted at the end. I also need to train on some hills because hills destroy me. Feels like I slow to a crawl going up hills. There’s always progress to be made, I guess.

Ran sprints this morning, kinda late–6:30ish. Went fine. I did an additional stretch of my quads this time. I stretch for 10 minutes before running, but don’t usually stretch quads. I think I’ll add them in on sprint days because my quads gave me no trouble this morning.

You’ve probably noticed that the bren:blog has a new look (again). This is a standard theme and I’ve just made a new header image. It’s lighter than the last theme, which was that green one with the stuff at the bottom. I think this still does everything I want: blog, twitter, del.icio.us, flickr, archives. Seems good to me, think I’ll keep it for a while.

Finally registered weight under 230! I’m stoked–I haven’t seen the 20’s in a long, long time.

Short on time this morning so I busted out the short loop and tried to push it a little bit.  Now I know how much it hurts to run 7.4 minute miles… What a dream to be able to sustain that pace across a 5k!

Ran sprints today. Right quad felt a little pulled after the 5th sprint. Seems okay, just tight and a little sore. Weight and bodyfat are up today. I’ve been eating more than I really need, I think, plus I missed a couple of days of workout since the last post.