Day 24

Week 4 is in full swing and the running is starting to ramp up again. Week 3 treated me very well, and I finally was starting to feel like I was getting "in shape" instead of just being sore and tired all the time.... In fact the other night I was thinking about how my legs and hips weren't feeling so tired and restless as I lay in bed... But I guess all good things must come to an end... Enter Week 4.

Last night my hips were sore and my legs restless, but at least my shin wasn't bothering me anymore (for now)...

Today I felt tired and sore some more... barely dragged my lazy ass out of the house and then... had an awesome 6 mile run!

Distance: 6.0 miles
Duration: 46:37
Pace: 7:46
HR Avg/Max: 154/172
notes:

The sky is cloudy and the temp is an unseasonable 65 degrees... I started this run with the intention of running brisk but easy and that's what I did... and after two miles I looked down at my watch and realized I was hitting 7:50 pace. I continued on at this pace through mile three. Mile 4 was a tough one because it was totally up hill and part of the uphill was a particularly steep quarter-mile accent. Subsequently I slowed down to 8:20 pace. For mile 5 and 6 I decided I was really going to push it and I knocked mile 5 off in 7:40. For mile 6 I really legged it out and hit it at 7:07.

I feel pretty good about the run. Higdon said to run it between 65-75% of max HR (closer to 75%) and I wound up more like 80-90% range but this is supposed to be a tough week and it feels good to go hard sometimes (i was beginning to think that the slow runs were making me soft). I figure I'll probably ramp down a little week 5 in preparation for the half marathon so might as well hit it hard now!