Easy start

Monday and Tuesday are easy. Yesterday like today I ran only one easy morning jog. Today I included 10xsteep hills in order to wake up these legs. At work I'm fighting with Heckman correction. It's pretty boring. Running isn't. Not after when I read about Nate Jenkins's Festival of Hammers!!!

Total mileage for June was 240. That isn't much.

Damien's

Today offered me Damien's 5k with low expectations. I just wanted to run a 5k, and I sort of did. Etiophians ran fast, faster of them ran a new course record 14.32. I was fourth with 16.47 two seconds behind female winner. I paced her almost for two miles, and that kind of helped me, too. So I'm pretty happy even with this slow time.

In the evening we rode an easy bike ride, 70 mins. In all, week was 62 miles.

Bagel Run

Due to yesterday and tomorrow I ran shortened Bagel run today, 9+ miles. Pace was easy, but that was fine after this weeks efforts. Next up.... Virgin Mobile Festivals tickets...

XC Tempo

HCS organizes this summer a new series of XC Friday runs. Today we had an opportunity to try our luck on 5k course. I ran a little late so I had less suitable warm up for this tempo, but after all I made it to the start before the gun. Instead of using full steam I took it as moderate tempo run. But how you do moderate tempo run on a XC course??? I finished second about 30 seconds behind Carlos (18.20), and after all, it turned out to be fun in a really weird way. I was 2.5 minutes slower than the course record, but that forthcoming Runner is running for Stanford during the next years. I'm not.

Centennial XC course (map: Greg Schuler)

Tired Thursday

AM: Only 4 easy miles. Legs are tired, and so am I. But the Nationals start today on Flotrack....

In the evening we did 20 miles bike ride.

Just a Wednesday

Morning jog was around 4 miles. Left achilles was pretty sore after yesterday's clown show. I think that it will get better on trails this evening.

Evening's trail run was pretty tough. 11 miles with no mercy even if we passed Mt. Nasty and Mt. Slayer. We had couple of young guns around, and they did not slow us down.

Tuesday "workout"

I didn't run track today. I was just too tired for that. But I ran to Centennial Fun Run and ran that mile (5.04) and then added some sort of fartlek (1 min. on / 2 min. off) on my way back home. In all this playing was 10 miles (@ 6.37 pace).

It's getting warm

This Monday started abnormally without running. Instead I continued to finalize the second version of one manuscript. I sneaked out for a 6 mile run (@ 6.35 pace + strides) at 3 PM in quite warm circumstances. I should already realize that it's pretty warm around that time. Maybe I'll learn that some day, maybe I don't - It doesn't matter.

New friends and fast triathletes

We spend this morning in DC by following the Dextro Energy Triathlon. Men's and women's elite fields were full of fast runners. Best men ran 10k in 30.26 and women 34.24. They were flying after some swimming and some more biking.

After returning home I started to hesitate that should I or should I not to run at all due to yesterday's downward spiral. But after watching those trimmed athletes flying by, it wasn't so difficult hit the trails. Seth came along to run at Greenbelt Park. We did an easy 6.2 miler. I got new friends, four ticks that is. However, even if our friendship was really close, it was relatively short. In all this week was 61 miles.

Pain in Bmore

Baltimore was again tough for me. I was even slower than last year, but somebody mentioned that the course was too long (1/4 of a mile) this year. Still, I was slow and I was hurting. I barely managed to beat 60 minutes. However, I did it and as of now I feel that today's walking tour was after all a decent workout. Not good, but decent. Lots and lots of work to do...