Long runs and mile repeats

I finished up my week on Saturday with a ten mile long run. It was a pretty morning, a little overcast, 52 degrees with very little wind that I noticed. The humidity was about 80% and rain was predicted in the forecast. We only got a little though.

I did an out-and-back on the bike trail and covered my first five in a very relaxed 41:13. I felt pretty good and decided to pick it up a little bit on the way back in and didn't realize how fast I was going until I hit the 9 mile mark in 1:12:41. I decided to just go with it the last mile and ran a 7:00 mie to bring it home in 1:19:41. I was pretty happy and only a little tired upon returning home.

I skipped my run yesterday because my brother drove up from Texas for leave and spent the night at our place. It was good to have my baby brother here and hanging out with us. Nathan took a shine to him and was hugging and kissing on him up until the minute he left. My brother leaves for Iraq next month and won't be back until until February or March of 2009. I can't wait for him to get out of the Army.

After returning home from work tonight I ran 3 x 1 mile repeats at tempo pace. My tempo pace is supposed to be 6:32. I ran a mile warm-up in 8:03 and hit my first mile rep in 6:30.87, which was a little faster than I wanted but was pretty good. I gave myself 1:00 rest and ran rep #2 in 6:28.71, which was still a little faster than I wanted. For rep #3 I made myself take it out a little easy the first half and then attacked the last half. I attacked a little too hard and ran my final rep in 6:23.00. I knew I was running a little too hard because the last one hurt a bit.

I covered 30.25 miles last week to bring my total for the year to 1,070.25 and my cumulative total since I started running again to 3,005.5.