Friday and Saturday were as easy as can be. Today, though, was my first "workout" in a while. Bob showed up at 7:30 and I took him on my Downtown - Southtown route. I forgot how enjoyable it was to run with a buddy. It also helps when said buddy is able to click off sub-7 miles when I start feeling frisky.
Bob likes to go fast. I knew this. Still, I always feel like taking it slow for the first two miles of almost any run (including tempos). After forcing a slow start, I let Bob dictate the pace and sure enough we start bringing it down to around 7:40ish -- a quick easy. As the return on South St. Mary's can be terribly boring (long, straight, and almost no cars), I decided to rock what I call a mid-run interval (hold a tempo pace of 6:35 - 6:55 for at least one mile). Although my initial goal was to keep it at 7:10, we never ran anything slower than 7 flat. Whatevs...it felt good to get the turnover out and about.
Nearing the homestretch, we decided to run some strides -- 3 x 10 seconds. Perhaps there was room for more, but we ran out of street before hitting the apartment. Bob was step for step the whole way -- SA RnR marathon training is going to be a lot of fun.
Right.
----Post Edit----
So I went on that double I was flirting with. I'm glad I did. It was the perfect run: breathing, stride, body temp...everything just clicked. My legs were somewhat tired at the outset, but they came around towards the second mile. In a bad (note: good) way. Although I didn't initially want to run a progression, it almost seemed easier the faster I ran.
I immediately began to think what I had changed in my routine. The only thing that was different from recent runs was my diet. I made a strawberry-banana-blueberry smoothie for Maki and me and had it about 3 1/2 hours before the run. I'm going to continue with this to determine if it has the same effect. If so...gold.
I added a photo that describes how I felt after today's double. It's about as perfect as it can get.
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