Better Late than Never

This applies in most life circumstances, except pregnancy - babies arriving late is frowned upon in my household. Anyway..

Friday's run (7/27)-
3 miles, 26.01
Shoes: Brooks Ghost 4

I was hoping to do a long run on Friday morning. This fell through because I'm very intelligent and forgot to set my alarm. I woke up at about 5:30a and was able to squeeze in a run before the hubs left for his commute. I took the opportunity to work on speed - which has always been my least favorite thing. However, I have realized that I'm as fast as I'm going to get without doing any speed work. I've been running for about 3.5-4 years now, and I've always been ok with my snail's pace. I figure I might want to speed it up some, especially if I'm going to cover 26.2 miles before the sun goes down. I have already started seeing a difference in my speed and I've only been actively trying for about 2 weeks. I don't know why I put it off for so long! I also feel 60 pounds lighter when I'm running because I have been going without the jogging stroller.

I read about this idea to make it a "game" - starting after at least a 1 mile warm up - I think I found this in Runner's World or some other running blog on-line:
1) 10 strides as fast as I can handle it
2) 10 strides at normal, conversational pace
3) 20 strides as fast as I can handle it
4) 20 strides at a normal, conversational pace, etc.

You get the point. The point of the game is to get to 100 strides of each - or in my case, stopping when you are sucking wind too hard to continue to run. I made it to 100 paces today, so I think I will try something new next week, maybe 30 second blocks.

The weather on Friday was warm - about 75 degrees at 5:30a and 80% humidity. I am battling a sore heel - but it seems to feel better despite work (and standing on my feet for the better part of 12 hours/shift) because I have been making a conscious effort to stretch. I have a really tight right calf and tight hamstrings - stretching helps me wind down at night but seems to be helping the foot, too.

I'm looking forward to my run on Monday morning. Stay tuned.

Oh, and keep your dogs out of the heat. I'm sick (and emotionally tired) of having to euthanize dogs with heat stroke.