No Earbuds Required

Today I joined PARR for 5.29 miles of running to the bridge, up and down it six times, and running back. Whoo! My average pace for the warm-up/hill portion was 15:22 and best pace was 6:58. That had to be for only a couple of moments, ha! Avg HR was 154 and I stayed hydrated today and kept my max HR down to 185, which is probably much better than pushing 200. I realized that the reason it was going so high at night was I wasn't bringing water out there in the heat. Also, this! I am running for Team Bel Inizio, a charity that helps disadvantaged women develop self-confidence and life skills through fitness and nutrition.

At first I thought it would be 90 degrees plus when I ran this evening, but Mother Nature had other plans and after a 100+ day outside we had a whopper of a Texas thunderstorm blow through! My kids were upset that we lost satellite signal, but I didn't need a satellite signal to run on the treadmill. Tonight I tried playing with my cadence for the first time, having read things that say a faster cadence (around 180 bpm) will help prevent injury and improve my form. So I found one of those YouTube playlists organized by tempo and went to it. My Mio was acting up so I had two separate readings: Part 1 (cadence work): .93 miles, 12:07, avg pace 13:00, best pace 6:50. Part 2 (going for endurance, not speed): 2.49 miles, 36:13, avg pace 14:31, best pace 8:27. Total: 3.48 miles; max HR tonight was 196, avg HR 151. Thursday's run was again on the dreaded treadmill! This time I found a great Spotify playlist. 4.09 miles, 52:14, avg pace 12:44.

I missed the first two weeks of hill work, so I missed the days where you only had to do three or four hills. Today was five (one hill being up + down the other side.) I ran 4.09 miles, including to and from the bridge, 59:32, 162 avg HR. My monitor said my avg pace was 14:32 and best pace was 7:29 during that time. Pretty good since I forgot to pause it during my water break! That makes almost 11 miles for the week :)

Ran a pace booster for the first time! Wondering about the accuracy of my heart rate monitor. It said my average HR was 173 but I took plenty of walk breaks and could pretty much talk the whole time. It blinked red at me a lot but I don't care. Said my max last night was 209. I didn't think that was possible. Oh well! Maybe I need to start bringing water with me. Been avoiding the whole water belt thing. Last night my average pace was 14:14 and average speed was 4.2 mph. Ran 4.03 miles in 57:27. Just going to keep running three times a week and see where it takes me. Nothing hurts too much today, pretty sore when I got out of bed but that can happen even if I didn't run 4 miles. Onward! I have run the equivalent of a marathon since July 13. I think that is pretty cool.

Avg HR 166, 45 minutes after warm-up, 2.55 miles, pace 17:21. Solid! Mio says I burned 542 calories. Best part, I don't really hurt at all today. Back again Thursday!

So, despite yesterday's knee soreness/pain, I got up this morning and went to Turner to walk the hill anyway. I walked over 6,000 steps from the parking lot, to the hill, went over the bridge and back once, and back to the parking lot. Saw old friends, made some new ones, it's all good! Most importantly, shoes still feel great and knee is sorting itself out. I definitely think I will be ready to run again on Tuesday. I have to remember that distance running is about endurance and gradually building that up in a way that is kind to my body.

Today's stats: 53 minutes, 3.6 miles, avg HR 162. My first 5K on the road since high school! Average pace was 15:25, fastest pace was 7:50. The Mio GO app says I burned 643 calories. Whoo! The ladies I was running with were quick but I managed to keep up. The only thing that concerned me was that toward the end of the run the outside of my knee started to tighten up a little bit. Nobody's got time for injuries! I have spent the better part of the morning stretching out various surrounding muscles and read an interesting article online that said gluteal weakness is responsible for many IT band issues because other muscles compensate and get overworked. So maybe I literally need to get my rear in gear. LOL