It's over, man. Let her go.

Probably no running today, but I'll get in some strength training this evening.

BUT, I registered for the Riverview Park 5k on June 9.  Officially threw down the $ and signed up, so I'm committed now.  I ran it with my daughter in 2010 and started out slow with her.  I have a good month to train, so I may be able to PR but I'm not concerned either way.  It's a gateway race to my goal race, the Montour Trail Half on Sept. 8.  If I get free entrance into the Great Race again through work, I'll run that 10k on Sept. 25.  Then, there's always the Dirt Monster the first weekend in October.  Just taking it one day at a time, though.

Oh, then tonight was my son's (and my) first guitar lesson!  A friend in our ward is a self-taught guitarist, has played for 25+ years, and plays very well.  He plays at some local clubs in addition to his day job.  He was so excited I asked him if he'd be willing to teach my son...and get paid for it.  He's such a nice guy that he wanted to do it for free, but I have issues with that and I insisted we pay him. 

My son has wanted to learn to play for more than a year, so as his "big" Christmas gift he got lessons and guitar, amp, etc.  We spent some time researching guitars, visiting our friend's favorate & recommended store, tried several, etc.  Picked up a nice intermediate Fender guitar and 15w amp a month or so ago and we've both been getting familiar with it.

The lessons are for him, but I'll be picking up plenty myself.  Looking forward to doing this together, and if he continues to like it and gets better, I'll have to get my own guitar.

I was wishing I had the external battery pack like RT has when I went running today...or that I had simply charged my Garmin.  It read low battery, but usually I get my run in without it dying. I died before my 1.5mi turn around on the trail.  It didn't feel like it, but it registered 8:21 for the first mile.  I was feeling 10:00 pace.  It was so hot and humid!  I'm not ready for this weather yet.

After the Garmin died, I was so hot and thinking about Boston.  I couldn't imagine running that far in crazy heat.  As I was thinking that, I came around a bend in the trail and I see a small woman in a track suit standing near some trees getting professional photos taken with the Pittsburgh skyline in the background.  Plus, there's a videographer from KDKA taking video up the trail where I was coming from.  A group of people stopped from their run/walks standing there on the side of the trail watching her.

I figured this had to be the elite female Marathoner for the Sunday race.  She looked really shy, though.  She didn't seem to like the attention and all the looks.  I thought that was really strange, but I kept running, wondering if I'd be on TV.

Walked past the newstand today (Friday) and see this article on the front page!  A really sad story (with a happy ending), but that explains why she seemed so shy.  Hopefully she will do well on Sunday!

After wimping out last night and not going on a run, today was the day!  Headed out after work, so it was relatively cool and the wind wasn't bad, just a light drizzle.  Took it easy & relaxed going up past CCAC then up around the park and back.  Kept the HR in check, nothing over 160 or so.  Pace was mostly low 9's except when I did a little walking or waited for traffic - 9:42 AP.  Got back to the gym and decided to do a little cool down on the TM.

Looking at the TM controls, I decided instead to do some intervals to get the legs feeling some speed again.  Set it to 15 mins, but only did 13mins (7 resting, 6 speed minutes) then cooled down the other 2:00.  Resting pace was set at 10:55, speed started at 8:00 but after two of those, picked it up to 7:30, 7:03, and finally 6:40 with a 8:00 final minute interval.  I was really happy with the "feel" of the speed intervals.  The 6:40 was definitely fast and I'd have a hard time holding that much more than another 30-45 sec, but it felt good to stretch out the stride - as opposed to the shuffle run I do.

Hopefully I feel good tomorrow since I stretched out well tonight and even with the miles, I don't feel like I over did it at all.

Goals for this run continued to change as I ran.  I started out thinking I'd run 4mi easy and just get away from the desk.  After a few minutes, I was feeling pretty good and decided to see what my 5k time was as a benchmark, just running it pretty easy with no walking.  This is a pretty flat 5k route, so it's not even close to the hilly 5k route the Riverview race will be, but it would give me an idea.

Turn around point was 18:55 @ 2.13 and I considered seeing if I could negative split, but that wasn't really my goal so I focused on the 5k mark.  5k split was 27:25 (8:50 AP) with a little push at end, but wasn't drained.  Thought I might walk for a min at 5k, but goal then changed to just run the whole thing. The whole run was very consistent pace wise, which surprised me with the wind gusts that came and went - a few that almost blew me over.  Finished at 37:32, so the bit of a negative split was icing on the Twinkie.

Riverview 5k in a month...I don't think a PR is in the cards for the course, but a sub-30 would be OK with me.  The hills - both up and down - will be tough on me, but I'm looking forward to getting a race in.

I was planning on running the Riverview course, but my son wanted to ride along, so we went to the track instead.  The first 3.26 mi were 1.08mi (or so) x 3. Ran lane 6, four full laps then stopped for a few sips of water.  Took it fairly easy, but after 1.5 mi or so the legs were feeling tired.  :-(  But, I kept it goin' and AP was 9:00 over the 3 sets.  Feeling pretty tired, but wanted to get in 4+, so had to keep going.

I decided to see if I could break into the sub-8:00 pace for a mile after my 3.26mi warm up.  Started off feeling controlled with my auto split set to 1/4 mi.  Hit 2:02, then another 2:02, felt like I was slowing a fair amount during the third lap and started justifying it would be OK to do a .75mi "time trial" but knew I needed to do the whole thing.  With a 2:04 split, I was determined to finish and try and make up the 8 sec.  With a 1:53, I was 3 sec short and ended with a 8:02. I'll take it...this time.

First run this week...ugh!  Beautiful day and always good to get away from the desk.  A pretty easy loop around downtown.  Finished off with a couple short "sprints."

Ran the Riverview loop with a 1/4mi down hill and back up.  Plus a little walking...

8:06 on the mile down
9:47 on the mile up (not too bad considering I did a few short walk periods

With a decent first 1.1 mi and some more pushing on the way up, I'll hit the sub-27 in a couple weeks. 

The distance may look impressive for me lately, but it wasn't all that...I did crave a bag of chips though.

Route was pretty flat, but it was hot today and I was feeling it by the time I got to where I wanted to turn around.  I thought it would be closer to 2.0mi but it was 2.75.  The first 1/4 or so was fairly slow, but the rest I was feeling pretty good.  Finished in 25:43 (9:21 pace).  I was a bit disappointed since that's not going to get me a sub-27 and this was flat.  I walked for maybe a minute then headed back, walking for a couple 100 feet every 1/2 mi or so.  Finished the 2.57mi at 10:14 AP.

Still two weeks to go before the race, so I'm still hopeful.  I think I would have nailed it but with the severe blood loss and starvation, I think that played a major role in today's run.  I had to fast before our annual Health Screening.  Then they prick your finger and take blood to run the tests.  Certainly that decreased my blood volume to where I was a good couple mins slower.  Haha

I was disappointed with my 180 weight since the previous two years I was at 170 and 171.  The 180 pushed my BMI just to 25 which is "overweight."  Sigh...  All the other numbers were very good to excellent, so I guess I'm going to live another year.  That's a good thing, depending on who you ask, of course. :-)