Chillin

I had two more 'hard' runs this week before kind of easing back a little.  The first was Tuesday - I left around 12:30 from work and only needed to do 3 miles at a short tempo pace.  This was suppose to be 7:10 or so based on my 7:30 HMP.  I ended up running 6:51, 7:09 and 6:51- for a 6:57 average.  A good 13 seconds below goal pace.  Excellent.  It felt hard but not too bad - and better than my summer 5k efforts.  Temps make a difference.

Second run was this morning.  Goal was 7:40-7:50, but I was pretty sure i'd get that easy.  I went out pretty fast because of the downhill, and was able to keep a decent pace through Davis: 7:05, 7:16, 7:23 and 7:30 (some deliberate slowing).  Then going up: 7:36 and 7:39.  7:18 down and 8:14 for the last uphill mile.  Averaged out to 7:30.  Again - felt hard but not too bad.  I think I can definately go for 7:20s the first half of the half - and then either focus on maintaining or speeding up the last 6 miles.  Very cold run.  Right calf tightened up a little.  I stopped to stretch and it seemed better. 

I have a 5 miler planned for the weekend (easy).  And i'll do 6x400s off-track Tuesday or Wednesday.  Then maybe another 3-4 Friday with some strides thrown in.  Easy!  Should be pretty amped to go on the 19th.