A Week of Outdoor Running

In my last post, I wrote about my big week on the bike last week. The other big news from last week was that I did my runs outside as we were on vacation and away from home. That's new since my injury (at the end of May), and I was worried about my achilles hurting and having to cover too much more ground before being able to finish. (Whereas with the treadmill, I can just step off and say "that's enough - something's a bit tight.")

But they all went well! Not "amazingly," but "well."

• MON, JULY 26th: 8.14 mile long run. I had gone 8.0 on the treadmill the week before, so I was HOPING for around 9 miles, but I wasn't going to overdo it. I figured there was a good chance that 8 miles outside would be harder on my achilles than 9 miles inside. I drove into town so I could run on the flat and straight trail. I ran a bit harder in the middle for 3 miles with half-mile splits of 3:22, 3:19, 3:21, 3:25, 3:11, and 3:07 = 19:48 for 3 miles (6:36.0 average). A few months ago (pre-injury), I'd be doing 5-6 miles at pace in the middle of my long run averaging 6:20ish.

Faster miles 3-6.


Count with the half-mile markers/splits: I didn't want to be far from my car,
so I ran out, back, out, back, out, back, out, and back.

• WED, JULY 28th: 5.56 mile run. Nothing fancy. Just an average of 7:00/mile on a slightly damp trail from an overnight rain:

• FRI, JULY 30th: 5.74 mile run. This one was another "test" as I didn't drive into town. I ran on the curvy and hilly roads by the lake we were staying at, and again I was afraid I'd flare something up in my heel/calf. But again, everything was OK!

Really random run.

For the future, I MIGHT do my long run outside next week, and I also MIGHT do a little speed work next Friday. We'll see!!...