James - 4

30:29

A slow run. Although I powered towards the end acting as if it were the end of a race. Might have been caused by the rain, or just tiredness after camping. Which, by the way, went very well. I won't bore you with details, but the camp was on a bit of greenland in an urban area of London, which meant that actually, people WERE running around the perimiter fence, haha. I thought about getting up early and going for one one morning, but I didn't have my shoes or watch or shorts, and we were getting up pretty early for morning meetings anyway. Not even any police running! Thankfully!

Luke - 6.25

6.25mi, 50:51 (8:08)

Mile loops of 8:34, 8:21, 8:20, 7:48, and 7:27. Felt pretty rough, which I suppose makes sense since it was my third run in 24 hours.

Chris - 2.5

21:34 - 8:37 pace

Mileage is approximate since I did some barefoot running tonight for about 6 minutes. I would've done much more mileage but I feel awful today, like I'm fighting off a cold or something. So even going on this run was a mini-accomplishment for me. As Quenton Cassidy says "a true runner runs even when he doesn't feel like it"! A few things I noticed about my first extended barefoot run was how hard my feet hit the ground, even when running slow - and also that my feet were a bit sore after I put my shoes back on and started home. I think my pace slowed considerably in the grass because it felt so different to run without shoes on (but I guess you guys know this already). I'm going to end this post with my favorite quote so far from 'Once A Runner':

"Running to him was real; the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free."

Luke - 9.5

9.5mi, 74:30 (7:50)

1.6-mile loop in 12:41, 1.4-mile loop in 10:28, 13:19 of barefoot running on the grass. I left at about 8am so I would be able to go on the grass before the bees came out, and although I succeeded in that regard, one side of the field was covered in geese. I was able to kinda go around them, but every time I went right next to them I tensed up a bit and wondered if they'd attack me. But they didn't, so I'm fine, and I'm gonna have some waffles now!

Luke - 6.5

6.5mi, 53:15 (8:11)

Five late-night mile loops.

Steve - 9.5

83:33 (8:48)

Long run on the MB wood chip trail. Did the whole trail and back plus an extra mile each way. Another hot day and I forgot to wear my hat. You don't realize how much a hat helps until you forget it and sweat is pouring down your face into your eyes for an hour and half. Splits below for your enjoyment. I wanted to run the final mile in under 7, but couldn't quite muster it. It wasn't an all-out mile, I just made a conscious effort to lengthen my stride and it came easily.

9:53, 9:11, 8:54, 8:58, 8:46, 8:38, 8:50, 8:52, 4:20 (.5), 7:09

Weekly Mileage Totals, 8/23-8/29

Luke - 32.06 (4)

Steve - 23.63 (4)

James - 22.9 (4)

Chris - 21.39 (4)

Chris - 4.17

31:13 - 7:29 pace

I was hoping to get in a longer run today, but after playing 18 holes this morning @ 7:45am I was feeling a little tired (shot an 87!). I actually mapped it out to run about 5, but I turned at the wrong street and cut it short by almost a mile. My knee was bothering me a bit today so it may be good that I cut it short.

Plus tomorrow I'm going to walk with my dad while he volunteers for ESPN at the Safeway Classic, which is played at Pumpkin Ridge. You may recognize the name of this course because this is where Tiger Woods won his unprecedented third consecutive U.S. Amateur title and then turned pro with Nike founder Phil Knight on hand. So I guess walking golf courses will once again serve as my cross-training...

Steve - 4.7

43:28 (9:15)

Cruise around my area on the scant grass available. Nothing terribly interesting here.

Luke - 12.56

12.56mi, 100:42 (8:00)

Today I ran 12.56 miles in honor of Dathan Ritzenhein breaking the American Record in the 5000 meters, in 12:56.27. This record had stood for thirteen years, and even though Ritz is 42nd on the all-time list of 5000m runners, he is only the fourth non-African to break thirteen, and is third on that list (second if you exclude Dieter Baumann, who was later busted for performance-enhancing drugs). Guess that shows you how ingrained running is in East African culture. I think the U.S. is making a surge to catch up to the Kenyans and Ethiopians, and it won't be too long before we have a few guys that can compete at the top level.

I ran this less than 10 hours after last night's run, but I was actually expecting it to be even slower. The first mile was about 9:30, but I was able to pick it up for most of the rest of it, even though it was a bit tough to do so. I did 12+ minutes barefoot on the grass, and it was early enough (and not too sunny) that the bees weren't out yet.

Didn't mean to "hibernate" this week; things got busy and then I went to Portland...I was expecting not to miss a run due to the trip, but on Thursday my friend tried to drive me to the bus station and we missed the exit and then took another wrong turn and we ended up not making it there in time, so I was forced to stick around and drink and play darts for another night, and my friend decided to just drive me down to Eugene on Friday. I'll try to get all my posting updated today...I promise to try to get it done in a timely manner from now on.

Luke - 7.25

7.25mi, 54:05 (7:27)

Mile loops of 7:51, 7:50, 7:41, 7:36, 7:27, and 5:46. Felt good going into the last one and thought I could probably break 6, so I tried to. Usually I check my splits every quarter mile, but I decided to try it without looking, so I wouldn't know if I was at 5:15 or 7:15 until I finished. I was pretty happy with the 5:46.

Chris - 4.32

32:56 - 7:37 pace

Felt better on this run than I thought I would after running a decent distance yesterday. Guess that's a good sign. I started reading my book last night during dinner and I like it already. I'm also fairly sure it's going to inspire me to keep running more miles. I think I like running after it's dark out. Seems more serene and alone than daylight running. Only sucks when cars come toward you and you can't see more than two feet in front of you.

Chris - 6.45

This may become my magneto run. I thought the going would be pretty slow today considering I was up till 4am last night and consequently got only 5 hours of sleep.

Luke came up on the bus to see a concert with me. There were 4 bands that played but we went to see Fun. and Hellogoodbye. You guys have to watch this music video of Hellogoodbye, it's pretty entertaining. Anyway after the concert we picked up a friend of his that moved up to PDX from Eugene and went to a pub so Luke and I could eat dinner, and we all polished off 2 pitchers and played some pool. Then when they kicked us out we went to an English pub close to her place that had dartboards. James - Luke said the pub was really authentic and that it reminded him of one's he'd been to in Manchester. I thought that was pretty cool since I've never been there. I think one of the highlights of the night was that Luke surprised me with my own official copy of 'Once A Runner'! I can't wait to read it.

So back to my run tonight. Fairly eventful in that some girl was hanging out of the passenger window of a car as it turned left in front of me at a stoplight and yelled something unintelligible, so I just waved back. Then a car full of girls honked at me as they passed. Oh and when I got back my buddy Dan called me to tell me his actual 10k time was 43:54. So he didn't beat my PR apparently. Makes me feel not quite as threatened, but no way I'm going to get complacent with both Steve and James racking up more miles every week!

Steve - 5.18

5.18 miles in 47:20 (9:08). Took it out pretty slow, probably slower than 10 minute miles for the first half. I gradually picked it up on the way back on the dirt. Near the end I was running on the sidewalk and it was pretty dark by the point. I tripped and nearly fell flat on my face when the sidewalk dropped in elevation. I usually run in the street at this point of the run, so I was quite shocked. I came really close to tweaking something in my already messed up knee, but everything seems to be OK the day after.

James - 4

30:33

A slow run that wasn't intended to be quite this slow, so that's how my legs feel after yesterdays monster.

I leave you with this thought until my next run, hopefully on Monday evening. I got my race information in the post today. In the advice it says don't drink alcohol for two days before the race. A few months ago, for my previous 10K, the same running organisers said go without for three days. Putting aside the fact that it would probably behoove runners to go for somewhat longer than that anyway, what does it say about the UKs alcohol-fuelled downward spiral that 4 months along the line they daren't tell people to even go for three days without getting pissed? In other words: VIVA LA USA!

James - 8.7

1:18:57

I had a feeling I was going stronger right from the start... but I am not 100% about this measurement! Another personal record. And it rained on and off today so the canal involved dodging lots of mud and puddles. Still, it meant less people to dodge.

I am also sure this is the first run that made me need a little nap a few hours later. Fantastic.

Steve - 8

4 mile tempo in 27:27 (6:52) with another Flyer on the track. Splits were 6:52, 6:54, 6:50, 6:51.About 20 seconds slower than what I ran last week. But I wasn't really trying to replicate that same pace. It turned out to be right at my half marathon goal pace (6:52). This one felt pretty good although my shoe came untied on the third lap and I had to stop to tie it. I kept the clock running and caught up to my running buddy a lap later. That lap turned out to be my fastest. I think the second one was a bit slow cuz I was babbling too much.

2.25 warmup, 1.75 barefoot in the grass cooldown.

Luke - 8

8mi, 60:00 (7:30)

The most interesting thing about this run is that I decided I wanted to run for about an hour (because I was leaving for Portland afterward) and I finished at sixty minutes and zero seconds.

Luke - 4.25

4.25mi, 35:45 (8:24)

Steve - 5.75

5.75 mi in 59 min. Nice and easy after two days off in a row. Body is starting to feel a bit better. I played tennis on Sunday for like 30 minutes instead of running. I want to start lifting some weights and other cross training stuff so I don't waste away into nothing with all this running..

Chris - 6.45

49:08 - 7:37 pace

Did the same big loop again. I like it cuz a lot of it is through neighborhood streets, and toward the end there's a nice bark section running alongside the street for awhile. Felt great on this run. Made sure to not start out too quick and was able to finish strong and sprint to my driveway.

Oh and I would like to mention that yesterday while playing 18 holes of golf with my dad, on my way to shooting an 88 (pretty good for me), I made a 70 foot putt with about 12-15 feet of break to the right. It was absolutely unreal! I'm fairly sure I couldn't make that putt again if I tried 100 times.

James - 5.2

40:29

Today was a first: I ran when I had a shift at work this evening (it's a first as far as I can remember anyway). A few things converged to allow this. First I was doing an extra shift, which means it was only 5 hours rather than the usual 8. And also I am still busy with lots of other things which means I'm not going to get to train as much before my next race as I would like. Mainly I will be away for a few days this weekend at the Camp for Climate Action. I think I'd look funny running the perimiter of a protest camp! I'd appreciate if you lot would have a look at that website, as the last few months of this year could make or break us with regards to climate change (scroll down for Seattle reference!) and any avenue for expanding the issue needs to be taken advantage of. Hey, it's relevent - how easy do you think it will be to run in the eye of a hurricane, huh?! Or, more seriously, if people had hobbies like running that were about self improvement and self empowerment over their lives maybe they wouldn't feel the need to consume resources like there's no tomorrow, etc. Thank you.

This was a rather slow run, or so it felt, which makes me think 1 days rest wasn't enough to get me over Saturday night. But I felt alright at work so I feel pretty confident about myself.

Weekly Mileage Totals, 8/16-8/22

Luke - 54.38 (6)

Steve - 42.51 (5)

Chris - 21.59 (4)

James - 13.2 (3)

Alison - 3.25 (2)

Writing this post really highlights how impressively you guys are running. Chris had three runs over 6 miles and Steve had three of 8 or more...you guys remember when you could barely do one run of that length? And I would never have though James could do a 7-miler when I ran with him in Florida that one time. We did like 3 miles and he was dying.

Oh and Alison is running too! Yay!

James - 4

28:04

I wanted to go further, but as keeps happening lately, other things dictated the nature of the run. ie. I was late. This is not a bad time considering I had a couple (literally, just a couple) of drinks the night before. I then came home and ate curry, then got wasted over the following 10 hours, stopping only to get a barburrito (chipotle) burrito. It'll be healthiness for at least a week now though because I need to take some medicine that I can't drink on, so that may help my running.

Luke - 4.25

4.25mi, 32:36 (7:40)

Chris - 6.45

50:06 - 7:46 pace

Nice "morning" run at 1pm. Did the same route as Wednesday w/o the detour to check out the baseball field. I was going to run yesterday but my new roomy had friends over for bbq and invited me to eat with them. Definitely a good choice on my part to accept the invite instead of going on a run. We had pasta salad, baked beans, porkchops, hot dogs, and salad with tomatoes and cucumber. Yummm. I would've run after that but I was stuffed and I had already made plans to go elsewhere. Even so, this is my 4th run of the Luke week (Sunday to Saturday), so I'm pretty happy about that even if one of them was a race.

Steve - 8.32

8.32 mi in 68:23 (8:13) We're in Santa Barbara for a few days with the fam. Plan was for an ~8 miler with my brother and Dad. I wanted it to to be a slow tempo/medium intensity type of run. After 2 miles all running together, my brother and I took off and got into a nice 7:45-8:15ish/mile pace. I found a website that suggested some runs to do in Santa Barbara and chose this run cuz it runs along the beach for the whole run pretty much. I was able to maybe a third to a half of this run on grass, which is always good. At about the point my brother and I sped up we realized a triathlon was going on right where we were running. We ran right through the zone where they change from the bike to the run. After a mile or so, the runner in first passed us. I figured out later the run was 10 miles for them, which must really suck after a mile swim and 30 miles on the bike. After we hit the turnaround point, we were running for a maybe few minutes and then came up on my Dad. He was running right through a water stop for the Triathlon! He told him to turn around when he saw a sign for the park that was coming up. I thought we told him that it was only a few minutes, but apparently he misunderstood. He ended up running another 2.5 miles or so before finally turning around because he never saw the sign. Of course my brother and I didn't realize this after we finished our run and we were wondering what was taking so long for him to finish. After about 30 minutes of waiting, we hopped in the car where he had parked and drove out to look for him. Finally, we found him walking about 2 miles from the end point. He had run for what turned out to be 10 miles and then started walking cuz, 10 miles is a long ass way to run and he was hurting. So we scooped him up and gave him a hard time about it, of course.

Luke - 8.25

8.25mi, 71:26 (8:39)

Trails with hills including The Wall. Don't really know the exact mileage, of course. I haven't run hills in a long time and it shows. Hills are the one thing you can't fake. You can get great race times, high-mileage weeks, and have great runs all the time just by running every day, but if you don't do hills consistently they'll kick your ass when you finally do them. Thought of the day, by Luke Vaughn.

Luke - 15.5

15.5mi, 1:54:15 (7:22)

Late, went first to the bark trail for five one-mile loops (8:08, 7:54, 7:46, 7:36, 7:38), then the lights were turning off so I went to the track for the rest of the run. I decided that I wanted to take splits every 800m, and that I wanted to start at 4:00, then go ~2.5 seconds faster each one until I got under 3:30. (More accurately, I wanted to go 4:00, 3:57.5, 3:55...3:32.5, 3:30, 3:27.5; that is, if I ran one a little fast I wouldn't necessarily try to go even faster on the next one.) My splits for those ended up being: 3:56, 3:57, 3:56, 3:51, 3:50, 3:47, 3:41, 3:45, 3:38, 3:37, 3:41, 3:33, 3:30, 3:33, 3:27, 2:58. They seem kind of all over the place looking at them like that, but if you line them up with what each one was supposed to be, they aren't too bad (I did accidentally aim for 3:30 twice in a row though). I was aiming for sub-3 on the last one and got it just nicely.

Steve - 8.16

8.16 miles in 82 min. Pretty much the same run as Tuesday, at least distance-wise (dirt/sand for half). Felt like crap for most of this run. I really wanted to stop running after about 2 miles, but I stuck with it. Body didn't want to run at all today, let alone 8 freaking miles. Perhaps a results of yesterday's tempo. Probably shouldn't have pushed it, but I have an easy week coming up next week and day off tomorrow. This is the first run in a few weeks where I have felt like this.

Steve - 8

Track workout with the Flyers. I convinced a few other Flyers to run a 4 mile tempo run with me. One of them always runs 5-6 mile tempos on the track. He wanted to run at his marathon race pace, which is about 6:40 or so. I wanted to run 6:45 to 6:50(a bit faster than my half marathon goal race pace), so it worked pretty well. Each of us led for one mile and then he pulled away a bit on the last mile. I started getting a bit of a cramp on the last mile, but I didn't push too much and kept it "comfortably hard" instead of straining. Final time was 27:04(6:46). Splits were 6:45, 6:48, 6:51, 6:40. We slowed down a bit on the third lap but I am happy with the overall time. 2 mile warmup with 2 mile barefoot cd on the grass.

Chris - 6.58

52:29 - 7:58 pace

This run kicked my ass. I could barely make it up the hill to my house at the end! Sure felt good to get out on a nice long shirtless training run after those two straight weeks leading up to races. About 4 minutes in, I was stretching next to a fairly busy road and some girls drove by in a green Mustang and yelled "I want you!". Sadly I didn't have time to put both my fists in the air and go "Wooo!" like James suggested, but it was a nice little ego boost for the remainder of the run. I ran past a high school with a baseball field that had lush green grass, but it looked like they had it all locked off, and I was also about as far as I could get from my house and didn't feel like adding too much onto my already fairly long run. Otherwise I would've had no problem hopping the fence in an inconspicuous area and doing a little barefoot running.

James - 7

47:42
~2 mins
~22 mins
---
1:10:09

I wanted this to be my longest time ever, but I am reluctant to count it as I had to stop, as you can see above. I was trying to make it to the last known sighting of a pub (AKA runners toilet) but finally gave in and walked for a while before going for 2 minutes and stopping again. The pub was nice from the outside, but the toilet was very dimly lit, and did not flush. I had assumed that crapping would put me back to feeling great for the last third of the run, but the terrible shit-hole experience plus the distance I had covered meant I didn't really go any better or feel like running. Fortunately for my regime, I wanted to get home, and running was the fastest way of getting there. At least I got in the mileage. Which is very approximate because I ran and ran and ran and have no idea how to measure it.

Luke - 7.8

7.8mi, 59:51 (7:40)

Bit of stomach pain. Other than that nothing notable.

Steve - 8.03

8.03 mi in 71 mins (8:50). A little more than half on the sand/dirt, the rest on the roads. I ran this faster than I usually do as I focusing on having good form and I was trying to get back sooner cuz I was hungry and the wife was making tonkatsu(Japanese style pork cutlets), which are awesome. My body was a bit sore on Wednesday, so I think I should take it easier on my next easy run since it takes more effort to sustain a good pace running on the dirt/sand.

Alison - 0.25

Sprinted! Distance: 1/4 miles; Locale: Torrential downpour

Today I ran from my office to where my car was located. I ran because it was raining and because I had on good shoes.

(Luke said I have to start posting more runs).

Luke - 9

9mi, 69:46 (7:45)

1.6-mile loop in 12:24, 1.4-mile loop in 10:17, 8½ minutes of barefoot grass running. I went at 9am but it was already hot. As I was starting my last loop on the grass, I saw a couple bees, so I guess I should go closer to 7am. I have found that I feel better throughout the day if I run in the morning, so it's probably a good idea anyway.

Chris - 2.36

19:03 - 8:04 pace

Just wanted to do a short easy run today to shake out the soreness and tightness in my legs from the race yesterday. Ended up doing a sizable hill, which was fun until I had to run down all these little hills that were too steep to gain much momentum, especially since I didn't want to run very hard. I might try to run M, W, Thu, F this week depending on how I feel Thursday, and take the weekend off. That should put me at 5 runs for the week (including the race) - since Luke does his weeks Sunday to Saturday and not Monday to Sunday. I'll be interested to see what my mileage total comes out to be.

James - 2.2

17:28

Shortest run in aaaaages. It was going to be short anyway because I had the dentist, and since this was my first run since Thursday when I ran with a numb face I didn't want to do that again, so I had to go beforehand. It became even shorter because I just felt crappy. Too much drinking and working on consecutive days (I am being asked to do so many shifts that I am starting to think training for the race is a good enough reason to say no, as the job makes me feel so physically shit). Anyway, at least I did it, worked some goodness back into my system and didn't drink today. Although I did try to phone someone to make plans and that failed, so I can't really take credit for staying sober.

Oh, and this is the second time my right knee has felt funny, when it's felt fine when I'm not running. Wondering what I should do, considering the last run was 4 days ago and it still didn't work itself out.

Alison - 3

Time: 32 mins; Distance: 3 miles; Locale: Treadmill

Dang dang sore from climbing the lighthouse in St Augustine

Luke - 9.58

9.58mi, 77:57 (8:08)

I ran 9.58 miles in honor of Usain Bolt destroying the world record in the 100 meter dash today. It wasn't just your once-a-year record-smashings, either...this was crazy. I hope people recognize what an accomplishment this is. Maybe I can put it in context for you guys:

Chris: This is like Tiger Woods shooting a 54 every 18 holes for the entire PGA Championship.

Steve: This is like Roger Federer beating Nadal 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, using a ping-pong paddle.

James: This is like Sachin Tendulkar scoring 440 runs off Curtly Ambrose in the fourth innings of a Test match.

Alison: This is like Johnnie Cochran getting a jury of Jews to find Hitler not guilty.

Here's a video of it. He gets close to 30mph at his fastest.

Chris - 6.2

I wasn't nearly as excited for this race as I was for the 5k last weekend, but that worked in my favor as I slept more soundly. I found out before I left in the morning that there were only 50 ppl signed up for the 10k (and only one guy in my age group), so I memorized his # so I could look for him and see if I had a chance to beat him. Was a little annoyed after I got there, because the first bus was supposed to leave at 7:30 (race start at 8:30), but it didn't pull away until almost 7:50. This means I had to sit in a stupid little schoolbus seat with my knees in my face all cramped and uncomfortable for much longer than I wanted to. But we made it there and I ran a couple warm up laps and decided to concentrate more on stretching this time around. In case I didn't mention before, the race went from my old HS rival's institution and ended at my old HS - Tigard High. Here's an approximate map of the course. I'm pretty sure they even changed it from the one I was looking at originally, but whatever.

We had chip timers for the race, which for some reason I'm not a fan of. Just one more thing to tie onto my shoelaces besides my car key I guess. Anyway, I lined up a couple people back at the start line. The guy that was my age was standing right next to me, but once the gun went off he got out in front with two other guys and I realized pretty quickly that I had no chance to beat him. So it was just me against my old PR and goal for the day: breaking 41. I swear, every first mile I never feel like I'm running as fast a pace as I end up doing. First mile was 6:19. Not terribly below my target pace I guess. Knee was feeling fine at the start, but slowly started to bother me. Not too bad though, and actually as the race wore on it went away completely! A short cute girl in tight spandex shorts passed me doing a pretty good clip between mile 1 and 2, and I tried my best not to be distracted, haha. Second mile in 6:23. I was starting to feel the burn, but kept up my pace pretty well I thought. I accidently took a wrong turn when we went into the bike paths under the railroad tracks, but there was a fence around some construction stuff so I figured that out pretty quick and cut across back to the path. After the girl passed me, I was all alone for a good while. I glanced back and the next guy was maybe 50 yards away. Passed the 3rd mile marker at 6:32. I'm not sure what happened after that, because my next split was 6:58. But right before the 4th mile marker the two guys that had been a ways behind me had caught up and were breathing in my ear. I kept them from passing as we went around the bends of the bike path as we ran towards Cook Park. They definitely pushed me to run faster, as my next split was 6:50. One of the guys was breathing pretty hard so it was easy to hear where he was. One cool thing that happened - my church was doing a 'sermon in the park' today, and as I rounded a corner going into the parking lot I saw a bunch of people I knew and waved and this lady I know goes "and there's Chris!" and they all started cheering for me. After we did an out & back through Cook Park (not shown on my map) the breathing hard guy started to pass me a little as we came up toward the steep and short Cook Park hill. I noticed he was listening to an iPod and had on a little black headband that was tied behind his head. I said to myself "I'm going to kick your ass on this hill". And I sure did! He had a good couple steps on me as we started going up, and by the top I had passed him and put myself a few steps ahead of him. My legs felt fairly rubbery as the road flattened out and went towards my old HS, so I prayed that my energy would come back quickly so I could put a little more distance between myself and this iPod guy. Didn't come back as quickly as I would've liked, but as I heard him start to get closer to me that was all the motivation I needed to stride out a bit more and hold him off. Passed the 6 mile marker at 7:20, which irritated me but I guess it was slow due to the hill. After that there was a straightaway along the front of the school and I really kicked it in and left that guy behind. We turned right into the parking lot by the swim center and ran toward the soccer field, with the finish right there under a white blowup archway. Ran the last .2 in 1:10 for a total time of 41:35! Didn't get my personal goal, but I felt like I ran a pretty good race - and I beat my old PR by 2+ minutes.

I decided to stick around for the awards ceremony, which was after the 5k and 1 mile fun run/walk. I ended up seeing my buddy Dan's cousin Kelly, who was running the 5k, so I chatted with her and her stepdaughter while we waited for the ceremony and ate free bagels and little sandwiches and cinnamon rolls. I also picked up the awesome Alan Webb poster shown above from a Nike table that was set up in front of an awesome VW bus that was decked out in Prefontaine images and quotes. I ended up finishing 8th out of 77 in the 10k. I guess I could've gone up and gotten a participation ribbon for 2nd place in my age group, but the guy read my name off quick with some other people's, and I didn't feel like claiming a ribbon for something I won by default.

Steve - 10

10 mi in 87:58 (8:48). Double digits for the first time in a while. MB wood chips trail. Felt pretty good. Ran around 9 min/mile the whole way before closing with about a 7:40 mile or so. My bands came yesterday and I tried them out. Hopefully they can help my with my knee/hip issues.

Weekly Mileage Totals, 8/9 - 8/15

Steve - 39.16 (5)

Luke - 29.25 (3)

James - 14.5 (3)

Chris - 10 (3)

I'm gonna start putting up a post like this every week. I only add up what is posted here, so hopefully this motivates you to put something up for every run, even when nothing exciting happens (*cough* ALISON *cough*).

Steve took advantage of my awful week to take top honors this week. Us 3-run losers have some catching up to do.

Luke - 8.5

8.5mi, 62:55 (7:24)

So on Tuesday when I ran barefoot in the grass I got stung on my foot by a bee. It hurt when it happened, but I was fine after a minute and was able to run home and it didn't feel bad at all. Then when I woke up Wednesday it was all swollen up, and it was fat and itchy and I couldn't really walk. It was still pretty bad Thursday, got a little better Friday, and is almost normal now, just very slightly bigger than the other foot. I gotta only run barefoot in the morning, when the bees aren't out yet...

So yeah this was my first run back. I did the old standby of mile loops on the bark trail at 10pm. When I got there and figured out how much time I had before the lights turned out, I decided I wanted to do somewhere close to 7:50, 7:40, 7:30, 7:20, 7:10, 7:00, and under 7:00. Or, as I kept repeating to myself, "Fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten, flat, sub." My splits ended up being 7:51, 7:43, 7:32, 7:21, 7:11, 6:58, and 6:27, so not bad.

Steve - 7.87

5 mile slow (long) tempo run in 37:37. I am going to do two tempo runs per week now instead of a true track workout. They'll be longer and slower than the tempos I have done in months past. Today's tempo was on a dirt track and I averaged 7:31 minute/mile pace for 20 laps. I think I should have warmed up a bit more (only 1.25 wup), as my first mile was a bit slow. Splits were 7:44, 7:31, 7:28, 7:29, 7:23.

Chris - 3.18

26:43 - 8:24 pace

Wanted to do a little more than the 2 miles I did last week Thursday since I hadn't done much mileage this week in preparation for the race Sunday. Felt like I pushed it a bit more, but that's fine with me. Part of the route had a decent hill so that may be why the pace is slower than it felt like. The leisurely pace last week was nice, but I think it would've been boring after any more than 2 miles. And Luke now you can add this to my mileage for the week.

Steve - 7.15

7.15 in 65:49 (9:12) on the dirt. Did this run early in the morning before work. Speaking of which, the other day at work, I mapped a nice plan for the next 8 weeks to get ready for my half marathon. I'm only going to get up to a little more than 50 miles unless I'm feeling really good. I just want to be smart about my mileage increases so I don't hurt myself. Already have a hip issue that I dont want to aggravate anymore. I actually ordered some bands to rehab it. On that link, there is a video with some suggested exercises that I am going to try. Hopefully it helps.

James - 4

28:38

I decided to run a second day going because a) I'm hoping to start running on Thursday in the build up to the 10K anyway (making 4 days a week) and b) I'm busy Saturday and maybe Sunday too so I am going to lose some days. The only problem was I had the dentist earlier today (yeah, again, British teeth haha etc, 50 quid thanks thats yer socialised medicine) and my face was all numb. I waited a while but even so I almost felt like my legs were numb. I'm sure that was unconnected. Anyway, so almost 2 minutes slower than the great time I got on this route the other day, but I'm glad I took it a little easy. I have the dentist on Monday too, the next chance I will get to run! D'oh.

James - 3.4

28:49

Fartleks. Distance is an ish. Hard, of course, but somehow not as hard.

Chris - 4.32

33:50 - 7:49 pace

Today's run went almost as good as I was hoping. I figured out that whatever is making my knee irritated is connected to the front of my hip. You know when you do a lunge to stretch out your hip flexor? Well when I do that (but straighten out my leg more than you normally would), it feels like something is going to tear out of the inside of my right knee. So I bet I aggrevated it when I was doing a slight downhill in the race, when I got taller than normal and really let my legs extend.

During this run I tried my best to keep my hip pulled in and my leg from extending too far back. New route today - ended up being pretty hilly! Total ascent of 300 ft or so. So I'm a little surprised my pace was under 8 minutes. I ran late, and came up to a short section of road with no sidewalk. There were a decent amount of cars, so I waited for them to pass and ran hard on the left side. Well a car turned onto the road toward me, so I crossed over to the right side hoping that I could reach the end before a car came up behind me. Sure enough one came around the corner and I had to bail out into the ditch to avoid getting creamed. Very exciting. Iced the knee right after I got home, and I've been taking Aleve morning and night. It definitely feels better than it did this past weekend, so I'm hoping the trend continues till Sunday and won't bother me during the race...

Steve - 8.8

Speedwork with the Flyers. Boring details below. Cruise intervals again. I'm more focused on keeping things smooth without taxing myself too much. So I usually feel pretty good at the end of these workouts.

1200-4:46(1:35, 1:36, 1:35)
800-3:05 (1:33, 1:32)
400-89

1200- 4:47 (1:37, 1:36, 1:34)
3:08 (1:37 1:31)
400-90

1600 - 6:36 (1:47, 1:36, 1:37, 1:36)

1.5 warmup. 400 recovery between each interval = 1.5 recovery. 4 mi speedwork. 1.8 cd barefoot.

Luke - 12

12mi, 90:56 (7:34)

1.6-mile loop in 12:23 and 12:11, 1.4-mile loop in 10:30 and 10:18, 9:22 barefoot on the grass.

Yesterday I planned on running after the Mariners game. I saw something say it was at 7, and usually that means east coast time, so I thought it was at 4. But this page happened to have it in pacific time, so it actually was at 7. So I was gonna run before the Mariners game, but then my roommate and his fiancée and brother were going to play disc golf, so I was going to go with them. But just as I was about to leave my brother called and said he was about to be in Eugene and needed to stay at my place until he found a ride down to San Francisco (where he lives). He was in Seattle for some music festival and his ride left without him, so he was talking with his friend and as soon as he confirmed that this friend could drive him from Eugene to SF, the friend went offline, and didn't answer his phone at all. Since he had to be home by tomorrow (today), he ended up resigning himself to taking the 14-hour greyhound bus ride that left at 9:50. So I drove him to the station at 9, and he didn't have enough money so I had to lend him money for his busride, which ended up being $76 for the ride and another $86 for having 3 extra pieces of luggage (he had an amp, a keyboard, and a keyboard stand). As soon as we paid, literally less than a minute later, he got a call from someone who had seen the ad he had put on Craigslist, asking if he had gas money. So we went to the cancel the bus ticket and he called the guy back and realized it was the guys that had left him in Seattle in the first place! We spent a little over a half hour trying to get a refund for the ticket, and I ended up only getting the $76 for the ticket back--the extra-luggage fee was for some reason non-refundable. We loaded everything back into my roommate's car and drove home to see the Mariners finish up winning, and I made my brother some pasta, and then his friends showed up and we loaded his stuff into their car and the day was finally over at like 11:30.

So yeah I didn't run.

Steve - 5.7

5.7 miles in 60 minutes. Ran this with a friend who I have done a few runs with lately. Slow pace as usual cuz its dirt/sand. Even with a solid 8:15 or so last mile, we still couldn't crack the legendary 10 minute/mile barrier. I'm planning on 40 miles this week, so everything the rest of the week is going to be longer.

Chris - ?

22:36

I took it pretty easy. I have no idea how far I went- I ran down the road to this green space that has a loop of trails, and I ended up doubling back a few times when I ran into dead ends. So maybe 2.5 miles or so. Also dodging branches and sticker bushes probably made me slow down. So maybe I didn't go that far. But I needed to do an easy run and see how my knee felt. Tight, but I was able to run without it being too bad. I iced it right after the run and took some Aleve before bed, so hopefully it'll continue to improve this week.

James - 7.1

59:55

I drank a little last night, and having realised that even just a little drink can be enough to put off your run (even if you dont feel hungover at all when just resting) I decided to wait until later in the day even though I really wanted to go. I went ater 8pm, when it was light, and finished after 9, when it was definitely about to get too dark and dangerous to run alongside a body of water.

I think I am going to try running 4 days a week soon (at the moment I'm in a routine of 3).

Luke - 8.75

8.75mi, 67:27 (7:42)

Went to the park and found a little patch of grass for ten minutes of barefoot running, then went to another park but there was a softball game going on so no grass to run on. Headed home, and when I was almost there I noticed the front lawn of the high school looked nice, so I ran on it for a little over 5 minutes (it was a smaller loop than I expected).

I think this is a new fun way to find places to run--find a park or two, and go to them to run barefoot in the grass.

Oh today I was planning on running in the morning, but I woke up with a spider bite on my foot, so I iced it some (melted an ice cube on it three times in about as many hours) and then ran in the afternoon (after watching the Mariners win 11-2) and it was pretty okay.

Steve - 9.64

9.64 mi in 88:20 (9:10) My first real long run in a while (although not long by Senior Vaughn's standards). I went back to run on the grass in Santa Monica that many runners in the area frequent. I usually run along a dirt trail that overlooks the beach for a few miles on this run also. At one stoplight a guy kept looking at me and then finally said,"Missed church today?" I said,"No church, running." I didn't really feel like trying to have my soul saved today. He said "You run every Sunday" and I said "Yep." The light turned green and then he said,"God Bless You". I said,"Thanks" (didn't know what else to say) and continued my run. Knee and hip were hurting on the second half of the run, so I guess Chris and I have more than our times in common...

Chris - 3.1

Well today was a lot of fun. I felt like Mr. Official Serious Runner because it was my buddy Dan's first race and Chris' first race since doing cross country his frosh year of high school. In fact Chris remarked to me as we pulled into the parking lot that there were a lot of people, and in my head I went "Psshhh, this is nothing compared to the Butte to Butte or Race for the Cure". And even though I haven't graduated to running shorts yet, I did wear my tech T from the Ridgeline Ramble. We got there with plenty of time to go pick up our bib's and long sleeve red tech shirts, and go on a nice little warm up jog around the large parking lot across from where the start was. Here's a map of the course that I made if you're interested. We were able to find Dan and his cousin before the start. Then we walked up to the front about 8 people back and I started stretching, and decided I wanted to walk up closer to the start line after seeing who was standing in front of me.

The start wasn't super fast, in fact after we rounded the first corner I started to try and reign it back a little and it seemed to me that I wasn't pushing it a ton, so I decided to keep that pace for the first mile and see what happened. After about a 1/4 mile Dan caught up to me, which suprised me! I knew he had been running a bunch but I didn't think he'd have the speed. And considering I had an unsettling nightmare earlier this week about showing up for the race late, running while pinning my bib on, and Dan beating me by like 4 minutes, his running the first mile with me concerned me maybe a bit more than it normally would have lol. As it turned out, I was able to put some distance on him during a slight downhill portion after a small bridge. Passed the first mile at 6:02. Little fast but I wasn't nearly as concerned as when I ran that time in my last 5k. Dan ended up not catching up to me again, but that was okay because at the end I was able to come back to the finish line and cheer him on as he came in. In fact he put up his hand to give me a high five as he came toward the line; that was fun. We also cheered Chris across the line, and Dan's cousin - but she was so gassed that she didn't see or hear us over her ipod, which I guess she uses in conjunction with a Nike+ chip to calculate her pace and stuff. Anyway, I could tell I slowed down the second mile, but not too bad. I had a couple people coming up on me but was able to hold them off for awhile. Passed the second mile marker at 6:22 and was starting to feel it a little bit. At about 16 minutes my right knee started to tighten up out of nowhere. Bad news! I tried to adjust my footfall or anything that might alleviate the pain and tightness, but nothing worked. So I just tried to keep pushing myself and ignore it. Passed the 3rd mile marker at 6:35. After I turned the corner toward the finish I started striding out a lot more, and waited until I was about 50 yards before I started sprinting. I was surprised to find that I put on a ton of speed and came flying across the finish at 19:30! Finished the last .1 in 30 seconds. A new PR by almost a full minute (but didn't beat Steve's unfortunately)! I told my friends I wanted to stick around for the results so we could see who won and stuff. Portland Running Company put on the race, so they threw out free running socks during lulls in the announcements. To make a long story short, I was surprised to hear my name called for coming in third place in my age group! That was pretty neat; I never thought I'd place (even in my age group) for a race of that size. After the race I was pleasantly surprised when both Dan and Chris separately said that the race was fun and we should do it again sometime. In fact, apparently Dan went and ran a mile time trial a week or so ago and got exactly 5:40 (my PR). I told him I would've been pissed if he got 5:39! The results of the race aren't posted yet, but he ran in the mid 20's and Chris came in a few minutes after him.

By the way I just read one of the article's Luke posted about barefoot running and nose breathing, I think I'm definitely going to have to try that, especially considering my recent hip and knee injuries. So right now I'm icing my knee and taking painkillers, and going to take it super easy running this week in preparation for the 10k next Sunday!

Luke - 9.75

9.75mi, 75:46 (7:46)

Did the 1.6-mile bark loop, then the 1.4-mile bark loop, then 13:39 barefoot on the grass. I breathed through my nose for like 80% of the run. It's funny how much I've thrown myself into the stuff in this article. It just all seems to make sense, and it feels good doing it. I encourage you all to read it, and then to read these three followup articles. You can decide yourself how much of it you want to follow. (Warning: they are pretty long, though interesting.)

James - 4

26:51

I think that's a pace of about 6:42. Massively above usual speed! Although doing the numbers in my head I realised I'd have to run that fast for the full 6.6 miles of a 10K in order to reach my target of 42 minutes, so who knows, maybe I am aiming too high again. Or maybe I am aiming just high enough...

Steve - 7.5

7.5 miles in 61:50 on the wood chips in MB. After two easy miles, I did 4 miles on the faster side. Kind of a tempo run. Not as fast as I was doing tempos the last few months because I'm focusing more on keeping it aerobic the whole way. It's hard to keep a good pace on the wood chips after a few miles without pushing it. Did this run around 10am, and its getting pretty hot out here. Mile splits below.

9:39, 8:34, 7:38, 7:36, 7:35, 7:37, 9:12, 3:56

Luke - 9.5

9.5mi, 73:44 (7:45)

Once again, I am totally guessing on the mileage. I went to my usual trails, but the connector path between the first and second trails is now under construction, so I couldn't get to the second trail. So then I ran barefoot on the grass around/on a softball field, 5 loops for 9½ minutes. Then I went to this cemetery that has trails and is pretty hilly, and I ran in there for a bit, and they have signs next to a lot of the graves talking about the person who is buried there, so I read one. It was Pliny something-or-other, maybe Pliny Snodgrass, and he was a banker. Moved to Eugene from his farm when he was 15 to go to the University of Oregon, then got a job as a janitor at the bank (one of his jobs was to milk the bank president's cow), and then was promoted to assistant teller, then teller, then vice president, then when the president died he became the new president. And then he died. The sign concluded by saying that while he was president they built him a house at 2691 Fairmount...so I figured I would go check it out. It was a fairly nice house. Good location, nice landscaping. After that I ran to a park and did another 8 minutes of barefoot grass running, and then went home.

Oh also I breathed through my nose for pretty much the whole run. I got used to it pretty quickly, and it actually felt pretty nice. Maybe I'll keep doing it.

Chris - 2

18:26 - 9:13 pace

Nice, super easy run - shake out before the race Saturday. Kept it real light and just enjoyed the night air and scenery. Little slower than I had anticipated, but I tried really hard during the run to not worry about how fast or slow I was going. Did a few strides at the end before I went up the little hill to my place. I don't think I've ever been this excited for a race before. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens! And obviously I hope my buddies have fun too.

Steve - 3.93

Nice, easy run on the sand/dirt. Pretty slow today. 3.93 miles in 40:30. Sand slows me down a lot, but I picked up the last .5 miles or so, closing in probably 8:15-8:30 pace.

Luke - 10

10mi, 79:13 (7:55)

Today's high was 70º. Seventy degrees! It was 106 last week, this is so nice.

For once, I don't really know how far I actually went. I know my last 1.5 miles were 7:30 pace, and there was a .8mi section that I know was at 7:50 pace, but other than that I just guessed. I was planning on going the sort-of-long way to Pre's Trail and then doing some 1.4- and 1.6-mile loops on bark, but on my way there a new trail presented itself so I had to check it out. It was all soft dirt with some fun little hills and stuff. As I started, there were people about every 100 meters, sitting in groups of 2 on the side of the trail. As I passed about the 4th or 5th group, they said to me, "You're the first runner," or maybe, "You're the first runner ever." I was wondering if there was like a race or something that they thought I was part of, so I stopped and asked "Of what?" and they said "Of this trail!" Apparently they had just that day dug it out. I was pretty happy until they said that they were putting gravel on it next week. They are putting gravel on all the trails here, it sucks.

Anyway I explored the trail a bit, it was about 12 minutes out and back so less than a mile of trail. I would use it to get to the set of trails that includes The Wall if they weren't planning on paving the damn thing.

That was actually one of three places on this run that improvements were going on. After I got out of the trail, they were finishing up repaving the road I was on. It used to have a ton of potholes and was not so great for running so I am glad they did that. After that I hopped a traffic barrier and some railroad tracks and they were doing something to some bridge. Where they were working was right next to where I was going so it didn't really affect me though.

At the end of my run I did a little over 9 minutes of barefoot running on grass. It felt really nice, I'll probably start doing that a bunch.

James - 5.1

40:11

Decided to try this old chestnut again. Not been feeling too great lately but hopefully that'll pass soon.

My dad surprised me by entering the Sheffield 10K, which I didn't know he was even considering. Looks like he got jealous of my getting to race again so soon!

Steve - 7

Speedwork with the Flyers. I decided to do this workout more like cruise intervals. So pretty much right around my 5k race pace. I wanted everything to be smooth and comfortable. 400 recovery between the 800s. Just a few seconds of recovery before the 400s. I tweaked the workout on the fly and changed the last set of 800s into a 1600 because the first 800 was going to be really slow. Workout went really well. Didn't push myself too hard and stayed really relaxed. I even did my cooldown barefoot.

4x800 - 3:11 (1:37, 1:34), 3:07(1:34, 1:33), 3:12(1:39, 1:33), 3:05(1:32, 1:33)
2x400- 1:28, 1:28
1600- 6:42

3.5 speedwork, 1200 recovery
1 mi wup
1.75 cd in 19:13 barefoot

Alison - 3

Distance: 3 summer miles; Time: 35 mins - but I walked around SPC once I passed it; Locale: Pinellas Trail
I must have been crazy to run in the Florida summer. I ran down the Pinellas Trail, and wow does that asphalt conduct some seriously egregious heat. Still, I was stressed about some family matters (not involving me) and this was very cathartic.

I passed two ladies walking greyhounds and I wondered if Luke could outrun them. Everyone on the trail is so kind and says hello. I feel like I live in a friendly place filled with runners, cyclists, and dogs.

Luke - 10.5

10.5mi, 83:42 (7:58)

Late at night again. I timed it so that I'd finish up my last mile loop just as the lights went out. In order to do that I had to run a 7:31 last mile, and my stomach was hurting. I did it in exactly 7:31; unfortunately the lights turn off 13 seconds before I thought they did, so I finished in the dark anyway.

Steve - 6.56

6.56 miles in 62:27 (9:31). Out in 31:41, back in 30:46. I Am starting to depend on this route that has a little more than 3 miles of dirt and sand for me to run on. It's a bit slow on some of the sand portion cuz its deep, but its less impact for the legs. Tried the nose breathing thing again. I was able to do it for most of the run, although I get kind of tired hearing the sound.

Chris - 5.43

35:08 - 6:28 pace

First run around my new place. I think this is the first time since running with Luke that I've left the house without having a route drawn out. I knew there were a couple trails that ran off the main road and I wanted to check them out. They weren't as long as I had hoped, but pretty fun nonetheless. I don't really believe my pace for this one, even though I meticulously drew out my route on mapmyrun.com when I got back home. I guess it's possible since I stopped a few times to figure out where to go next, and there were hills I went up and then back down.

The inside of my right knee was bothering me today; both at work and on my run. I think I might've strained it while moving. I'm wondering if I should take off Thursday if it continues to be tight? I guess I'll see how it feels....obviously even though it bothered me intermittently on this run, I was able to run a decent pace. I'm just concerned if I really push it with my 2 miles on Thursday that it'll bother me more on Saturday during the race - and then I'll be pissed if it affects my time.

Steve - 4.9

4.9 miles in 47:51. Nice, easy cruise around the neighborhood on grass medians and the streets. First official day of my half marathon training program. I haven't laid anything out, but I have a rough sketch in my mind. Luke sent me an article yesterday which talked about 5 problems with the way runners are coached/trained in the U.S.

http://www.tullyrunners.com/Articles/RaucciArticle.htm

One of them is the way we breathe while exercising. The author talked about how the mouth isn't meant to be used for breathing and how we should teach ourselves to breathe out of our noses while running. We actually take in too much air when we breathe through our mouths.

Well, I tried it today on this run. I kept my mouth shut for the first mile or so and breathed only through my nose. It gets tough after a while, even at an easy pace. I had tried this before several months back when I was running in cold (by L.A. standards) weather, because I read that when breathing the nose helped reduce the possibility of developing asthma or pneumonia while running in cold weather. I live right near the airport in L.A. so I'm pretty much breathing in jet fuel every breath.

Anyway, after awhile I had to breathe through my mouth some cuz I just wasn't getting enough air. I'm going to try to slowly incorporate this breathing on my easy runs.

James - 5.9

52:17

Was feeling tired, Alison was at work, seemed like a good day for another long and slow one. I was weak, and can't say I felt great after. I even ate an expensive organic meal beforehand (not something I do often as much as I'd like to). Anyway I needed the toilet for the last half an hour and that was no fun.

Steve - 5

Perfect conditions today for a 5k. Very overcast and not hot at all. Not a ton of participants either. I even showed up early for the race for once. So these factors were all in my favor to break 19. . .

Well, it didn't happen. But, I still ran pretty well. I started out a bit slow (6:16 first mile). At the beginning I thought recognized a runner from the Flyers and talked with him a bit in the first 400 meters. Perhaps I should have just ran, but oh well. As I crossed the first mile marker, I recognized another runner from the Flyers who had ran his first mile way too fast. I zoomed by him, this time not wasting any energy to chat. I guess slowed a bit on the second mile (6:25) for some reason. I thought I had sped up, but it might have been because there were a few slight hills to go up. At that point, I still felt pretty good, so I decided to pick it up. There was a woman who was like 30-40 meters in front of me at the second mile mark who I had seen at other races. I remembered she had run in the 19s, so I decided I would catch her. As we approached the final turn, I passed a few other runners. The final portion of the race had a downhill beginning. It's a great feeling mentally when you round the turn and start tearing downhill. I really wanted to finish strong. I looked at my watch, saw 14:xx and told myself "only 5 more minutes of pain" as I upped the pace. I passed the woman in front of me and another runner who was breathing quite heavily. As I closed in on the 3rd mile marker, I set my sights on another runner 20 meters ahead. I wanted to get one more runner. I crossed the marker at 6:04 for the third mile and went into another gear for the final 200. Couldn't quite catch up to the runner in front of me, but it was a solid finish. Stopped the watch in 19:23 (:36 for the final 200). Not too bad, considering how slow I did the first two miles. I felt great after the race, so I know a lot of time was left on the course. Not sure about when I will do another a 5k, but I won't be tapering anymore when/if I partake.

Luke - 10.5

10.5mi, 82:29 (7:51)

At night. Mile loops of 8:24, 8:16, 8:05, 8:02, 7:50, 7:41, 7:28, 7:17, and 7:01.

Sorry about the hibernation. Some people get all unmotivated in the winter when it gets cold and cloudy. I get that way when it gets too hot. It has been far too hot here. I need some rain.

Steve - 2.6

Another short easy run to close out the week. I have a 5k tomorrow so I have been taking it easy this week in hopes of setting a new PR. Here are the goals:

a. 18:45
b. 18:59
c. Have fun! (as ordered by Luke before summer hibernation)

Next week I will ramp up the mileage as I began training for the Long Beach Half-Marathon in October. Only 70 days to get ready. I need to work on a training plan, but it's likely going to consist of 6 runs a week and peaking as high as 55-60 miles per week (possibly more depending on how I feel).

Chris - 8.11

62:23 - 7:41 pace (splits: 30:47 - 31:36)

I started out really slow on this run. I've also found my hammy's are really tight in the morning. I didn't push it hardly at all on the way out on this run, so that makes me think it was the heat and sun beating down on me that gave me the positive split. I'm pretty happy with the pace though, even with the positive split I felt like it was fairly even the whole way. Time to go clean up and eat breakfast/lunch and start packing up some of my crap! Oh and by the way, this is my first ever 20 mile week! Luke had me running 7 today, but I extended it to 8 so I could get to 20.

James - 4

29:30

Felt better but took longer!

Today is August 1st, which means the run of September 6th is glaringly only a month away! BOLLOCKS SO I SAY.