Yesterday was a much needed rest day. I was hoping for a big 20-23 mile run today. The weather had other plans. It was hot and humid in the afternoon. I thought I'd wait until the evening. Then, thunderstorms went through. They were worse than I expected.
I almost skipped the day altogether, but I knew I'd be mad if I did. Finally, things cleared up after 8 PM. About a half hour later, I was out the door. The plan was to just run 5 miles around my neighborhood and mainly at the school.
Since I was running after dark for a bit, I put on a bright yellow shirt. I thought it would be cooler after the rain. However, it was still super humid. The shirt didn't last very long.
I started off going right to the school. I looped around there and was already getting bored. Since it was still light out, I decided to run in the neighborhood across the street for a bit. That worked out well, to break up the run. My shirt came off at this point. I did a short loop of less than a mile.
The first half mile was awful. I felt like crap and it was so slow. It is weird how I often feel worse after a rest day. The legs never feel fresh, at least in the beginning. After a slow 8:49 mile, things picked up.
It grew dark and I ran back over to the school. I wasn't much over a mile at this point, but I figured I could loop around the school, at least for some time. I threw my shirt down and began the loops. On either the first or second one, I saw a group of kids on the path behind the school. They were walking away from me though.
These loops were boring and it was humid. At least they were going by kind of quickly and the legs began to come around. Mile 2 was an 8:15 and mile 3 was a 7:41.
I actually had no idea of my pace. I couldn't see my watch very often. I had to light it up to look at it. The school lights in the parking lot were on all winter when I ran there, but now I didn't have them.
Without intending it to be, this sort of became a progression run. I did the short loop near mile 4, rather than the longer one. Mile 4 was 7:38.
My watch had been getting sweaty, so I took it off earlier than usual. Then, I really lost the screen with all my data. That happened on the last loop. I was upset, but figured that it was still working. Right as I was done, I got it back and stopped the watch just in time.
Because I wasn't looking at my pace and I knew my first mile was slow, I was shocked to see a 7:54 pace on my watch. The 7:10 last mile seemed super easy. I hope 7:10 miles will feel that good during my marathon. Maybe fresh legs will do that for me.
It was nice to be done. Although I was sweating a lot, I wasn't too soaked, thanks to a shorter run. My body could probably use the rest. I guess I'm likely not going to get another long run in before the race. I might need to just start to taper soon and be fresh for the end of the month.
Having such a short day will make getting to 90 miles again this week very difficult. I guess I'll probably have to settle for less. Tomorrow is supposed to have more bad weather. Ideally, I'd run twice and get like 16 miles total. I don't know if I'll be able to fit that in though.
5 miles - 39:34 (7:55 pace)
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