9 miler

Ran 9 miles at 2 p.m. today and luckily it wasn't too hot (around 80). I couldn't get mapmyrun to work so I had to guess and ended up doing 9.25 miles in a couple minutes under 1.5 hours. About 9:30 miles. Nice and easy.

Darn

I couldn't get in my measly three miles yesterday so I had to do it today instead (Fridays and Sundays are my rest days). My mileage actually drops down to 9 miles tomorrow (every 3 weeks, the long run mileage goes down to get ready for the next increase). So running 3 today wasn't a big deal.

I started out and it looked like rain so it was gloriously windy and cool (and never rained on me or my ipod- perfect!). I felt good so I ran a pretty good pace to start. By halfway, I got the crazy idea to see if I could get a sub 8 minute mile. I've gotten 8 before, but not below it. It would just feel so good to be in the 7's, even if it was just a 5k. I pushed at the end (but not 100%... for some reason I shy away from giving 100% at the end... probably b/c I think I'll keel over before I finish) but ended in 24:15... 8:05. Oh well! Who knows how accurate my courses are anyway, I could easily be 15 seconds above or below that (although I seriously doubt the latter).

Big hills, slow pace

Yesterday I had a 6 miler and ran it on the Sandy/Draper border again. I somehow managed to plan a route that seemed more than 50% uphill. It was good to get some hill training, but it was challenging and I decided to completely give up on keeping a normal pace. I was really crawling up the big ones, and my feet hurt by the time I was done. While I was running, I thought this might be similar to my marathon pace, but I got done in 55:15, which is a 9:12 mile, and there's no way I'm running a marathon that fast. But it did feel good to slow down and get some hills in.

New shoes

Today was my second attempt to break in my new Asics. I only had 3 miles again so I figured this would be a good distance. Although they started out feeling very cushy and wonderful, by the time I got halfway through, the ball of my right foot was killing and my heel hurt, too. I could tell the shoes were causing me to run on the outside of the foot a little bit, so after I focused on achieving my normal pronation, the pain went away. I think after a few more tries, these shoes will be all broken in and just as great as my old Asics.

Despite the foot pain, I still felt good and the shoes must have done something right because I beat my time on my latest 3 mile loop, finishing in 24:24 (8:08).

Change of plans

I decided my Marathon Rookie training schedule just didn't feel like the right fit... I just felt like there wasn't enough mileage so I decided to switch to the Hal Higdon Novice 2 training schedule. I know a lot of people use Hal Higdon, and even though I've never run a marathon before, I don't really consider myself a beginning runner so I'm doing the next step-up training schedule.

So that shoots me into week 5 of training and today I ran 12 miles. I started really slow because I was worried about getting injured since I only ran 6 miles last Saturday. But all was well and after some killer hills, I reached my halfway point and still had lots of energy. It's like my body knows when I hit halfway and just can't wait to get to the finish. I did it in 1:51:50 (9:19 miles), which is great considering I was probably doing over a 10 minute pace for the first 6-7 miles.

Lovin those 3 milers

So I've run 3 miles on so many of my training days now... I really should run a 5k race because I'm getting really used to that distance. I ran it yesterday in 24:46 (8:15). Feelin good!

Hills!

Justin just had to watch King James play over at his dad's tonight, so I got to run with some new scenery. Ran up 114th south and around Hidden Valley Drive and the view was AMAZING (got up a hill and BAM, there was the new Draper temple all nestled in the foothills), everyone's yards were gorgeous, and there were actually HILLS. I realized how flat it is where we live in the middle of the valley, and I'm jealous. I might just have to go over to Sandy/Draper more often for some hilly runs. It was good to experiment on the uphills and downhills. Ran 4 miles in 35 minutes (8:45 miles).