Mon-Tues-Wed

Just an update to Monday's entry: I thought my head would explode. I was miserable at work. 3 miles total that day.

Tues, I slept in, and jogged with the dog for 8.45 miles, very slowly. My legs were a bit stiff, but it felt good to sweat out the bug a bit, and once I warmed up a bit, it was pleasant to keep going. The pressure headaches were gone, too. Thank goodness. It felt almost as bad as that time I fell asleep in a non-pressurized prop plane and didn't wake up until it was landing. The most memorable part of this run was the groundhog that ran just a bit ahead of us. My dog remained heeling, but he was royally whining. He knows to ignore squirrels and is getting better at ignoring rabbits and chipmucks (he apparently can tell rodent species apart, or at least slot them into two categories: "things I've gotten yelled at for chasing" and "things I have not...yet". Although, admittedly, we dealt with the rabbit and baby rabbit issue two years ago, but since we haven't seen much of either since the move, they've become exciting again.) At any rate, all this pales besides the lumbering round bulk of a groundhog. So plump, so catchable! And this thing didn't slog off out of sight, but kept jiggling ahead of us. It wouldn't go away! Finally, I turned around to give it some time to waddle off.

Wed, I slept in less, and jogged with the dog for 5.85 miles. Then, in the evening, I ran 8.34, including a 7k tempo with the group, at about 5:01/km. This is maybe a bit slow for a tempo pace for me, but long for a tempo run for me and I'm pretty flat and sick, so it was very suitable now. For various reasons/excuses, I did no tempo runs in the spring. Since they are my weakness, I should do them, and this is a good way to get back into them.

I should do resistance exercises but I have dragonboating tomorrow and that will be a workout enough. I'm trying to recover from this cold, but I would like to keep my mileage up. Will see if that works!

Oh, my 'new'* 'speedwork'** shoes are featured in an article on a website: http://running.competitor.com/shoes-and-gear/girl-gear-saucony-grid-type-a2_2170

* Not really new anymore
**Not really exclusively for speedwork: also wore them for my last marathon, which was very much divorced from 'speed'. LOL

The website, at any rate, is new and very interesting: www.running.competitor.com