4 weeks til Utah

Spending the week at the Lake House with the fam, and taking a few days of vacation at the end of the week!

Monday

3.14 mi @ 9:30/mi

Got out at sunrise for a little 5k out and back on Lake Road. Already ridiculously humid, but at least the temperature was slightly less oven-like.

Lake Rd. hills

Deer fren 🦌

New Shoes day (pair 1 of 2)! 🎉

Tuesday

8.05 mi @ 9:12/mi avg

Got some early miles in with crazy low temps & humidity! That was quite a treat. Decided to throw in some speedwork as well to make the miles go by a little quicker, so did sessions of 1/2 mi hard effort with 1/4 mi between. For some reason I thought I could get through 8 of them, but ended up with 5 and that was perfect, all between 7:20-7:40/mi pace. Saw 15 deer along the route, just one loose dog who was only mildly interested in me (I still squirted him with my water bottle), and overall just a lovely morning!

Morning glow on the tree tops

Rolling Hills is an aptly-named neighborhood

Sunrise

😀

New Shoes day #2!

Wednesday

1 mi run + 2.5 mi ruck

Midday mile for the streak followed by 2.5 mile ruck with 20#. Had also wanted to do a full ruck workout but didn't have the time with trying to get the last bit of the week's work done. 

Midday deer friend

Thursday

17.76 mi @ 10:02/mi avg

I had thoughts of a symbolic long run on the 4th... either 7.4 miles (easy option) or 17.76 miles (hard option). Close to 18 miles was a little more than I've done lately in my long runs, but I decided to go for it and figured I could always turn around early since the route is an out-and-back. The Lake House is about 1.5 miles from one end of Lake Road, and ~7 miles from the other end. I started out by completing the shorter end of the out-and-back, then began the long trek out to the far end near the dam. 

Starting out at dawn!

Counted 27 deer

One end of Lake Road

I took the pace nice and easy to conserve energy, and made sure I ate and drank regularly (more than I probably would have normally, but wanted to make sure I wasn't going to deplete my energy before the end). This turned out to be a great strategy and I actually felt really good through the entire run. At the turnaround point (just beyond the other end of Lake Road, a half mile down Dam Road - yes the names are creative, aren't they?) I decided I would do a 90/10 run/walk per mile for the final miles. Overall this made my average mile pace faster than the first part of the run where I was just running steady pace!

The other end of Lake Road

The mileage worked out perfectly, and I managed to stop my watch such that both my Garmin result and my Strava result agree on the 17.76 mileage! It's a miracle!

Happy to be done!

I was surprised how good I felt the rest of the day, not overly wiped out or exhausted. Must mean I fueled and recovered well! (I did eat 8 pancakes when I got home...)

Friday

1.7 mi run

Short morning run for the streak.

17 min ruck strength

Had thoughts of more, but kept it short and mostly upper-body focused. Legs are tired!

Saturday

8 mi trail run (~2 hrs)

Went to Poinsett State Park for a run on some trails, and I very nearly turned back within the first 10th of a mile because I kept running face first into SPIDERWEBS. After a small temper tantrum and some stern self-talk, I picked up a nice sized stick and ran, waving it in front of me, for the next 4 miles. 

Morning sun through the Spanish moss

Good morning, spidey. 🕷🕸

Once I finally passed Scott in the opposite direction, I knew my way would be mostly clear so I ditched the stick and had quite a nice run! The legs felt great, definitely humid out but overall felt really good physically. 

The sign for the bombing range across the highway 🙃

Sunday

5.75 mi @ 10:27/mi

Afternoon run in the heat when we returned home from the Lake. Legs were feeeeeeeling the tiredness of the miles from the week. Kept it slow to maintain low heart rate, had to walk a good bit to bring it down below 150-160 range. 

Total of about 45 miles for the week... yowza! No wonder the legs are tired. Time for a wee taper before next Saturday's REAPER! 🔥