June 18 to 22, Thursday to Monday
“You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone. ” — Percy Cerutty
Thursday- Rested
Friday- 3 miles in 45 minures. This was a very uncomfortable 45 minutes. In retrospect I should have just taken the day off.
Saturday- Rested
Sunday- 5 steady miles without a watch. Legs felt pretty good but I was extremely tired the rest of the evening after that run. Luckily I got between 10 and 11 hours sleep Sunday night.
Monday- (Today) finally a workout worth writing about. But first a word about how beautiful it is on the cinder track around 7:30 in the evening. The entire track is in the shade by this time. That is 800m in the shade! It is simply delightful running. Tonight was no exception. Even though the temperature was about 84 degrees it was comfortable. And it doesn’t get dark until 9 o clock during the weeks before and after this summer solstice.
But I digress. Back to the workout which was worth talking about. I thought it was time to do some Tempo work. Estimated my tempo goal to be about 10:00 per mile. I thought 20 minutes would be a good amount of time. So I figured on running 2 x 10:00 miles with a light rest in between. I was somewhat concerned that my legs would be a little used up after a 5 Mile run yesterday. During a 1-mile warm-up jog my legs felt quite good. I set out on my first Tempo mile and finished in 9:33. I was happy with that. I set out on number two and once again feeling quite good finished in 9:20. Feeling challenged but no aerobic or muscular distress , I decided to try a third 1 mile effort. I told myself that I was getting comfortable being outside my comfort zone . I became more enthusiastic as the third mile went on and pushed the pace to finish in a surprising 8:50. I concluded with an 800m cool-down jog to total 4.5 miles. This workout turned out to be much more positive than I had anticipated. I finished confident and invigorated. Thank you, Percy Cerruty.
My statistics in all categories have been very positive and very steady.