Got No Time

Not much to say this week.  School has consumed my life.  I managed to squeeze in an hour run on Sunday night--7 miles in 59:59.  Next weekend isn't looking much better right now.  I'll have to get a lot of things done in the next few days if I'm going to have any chance for a long run.  If I do get the chance, I'd like to try for an easy 22 miles.

An Easy 20 Miles

As the temps are now steadily in the 100's, I'll be doing almost all of my runs on a treadmill.  I got a solid 7 hours of sleep last night.  I woke up and drank some water and then headed to the YMCA.  As I was walking up the steps to get inside the YMCA, my foot slipped off the step and I hit my knee on the ground.  I wondered if this was an omen.  The first couple of miles were okay.  My legs felt a little sluggish.  I decided to run for 6 miles at 10 minute pace and then I would try a run/walk style that I read about on Hal Higdon's site.  I couldn't remember if it was supposed to be run for 5 or 6 minutes and then walk for one minute.  I decided to do a 5:1 ratio.  I also tried the Powerbar strawberry banana gels because they were the only ones carried by Walmart.  They have a strong taste that some might not like, but I thought it was okay.  Unlike the Hammer gels I tried a few weeks ago, there were no noticeable effects.  Anyway, I maintained the 10 minute mile pace and felt good all the way through 15 miles.  I picked up the pace for miles 16-20 and felt good.  Overall, it was a good run and I'm happy with my progress so far.  I'm hoping to be able to build up to 30 miles for my long runs.  I guess I'm 2/3 of the way there.  The time for today's run was 3:19:48.