Day 78

Five easy miles today as I begin my cut-back week... I decided that since this was going to be an easy run I would take the dogs along with me. I ran two miles with Sasha, dropped her at home, and then ran a mile with Annabell before dropping her off and picking up Sasha again for the last two miles... Sasha did great until about the 4.75 mile mark where she simply stopped and lay down in the grass, deciding that she was not going to run another step further... so I picked her up and carried her the last quarter mile tucked under my arm.

Distance: 5.0 miles
Duration: 42:07
Pace: 8:27 min/mile
HR Avg/Max: 140/161
notes:
I'm really starting to see results in my cardio conditioning as my heart rate surely and steadily declines. I wore my heart rate monitor to bed last night to get a reading on my resting heart rate and I recorded 42 BPM as my low which is about 15 beats slower than when I started.

Furthermore, five miles seems like a short run now! My leg muscles are recovering much faster than they used too and I can walk down stairs after a long run... My restless legs haven't bothered me in a while and I'm feeling more energized... It took a bit, but I believe I'm finally starting to get in shape.

I still have some weight to lose, since I haven't dropped nary a pound since I started training. But I'm optimistic that if I combine some weight loss with some speed training than I will eventually turn myself back into a runner again!

5 miles tomorrow and I'm thinking I might make a time trial of of it... I'm feeling pretty good and would like to test myself.