Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Interval Session Twenty-One

It's finally cooling down a bit. It was in the high 70's today when I got started. I hit the trail at 5:45 PM. Blacktop once again. I didn't feel like going all the way to the river. I still feel more comfortable running the paved trailo... probably because I long ago memorized the landmarks & already know the distance.

It must have been a combination of the cooler temperatures & this segmen ending but I really felt great. This was yet another one of those sessions I was considering skipping. I'd been thinking all day about how I really would have preferred to go home & crash. Instead, I got home, changed & out the door as soon as I could manage it. Today was the last session of week 7.

I felt much lighter today. I noticed that my gait is beginning to change again. Today I was closer to actually running (as opposed to TROMPING) than I ever have been before. The solid session of 25-minutes have paid off. I really could feel the difference now as opposed to a week ago.

I noticed that I covered more ground today as well. I always start at the same approximate point on the trail & the running segment starts up at the same general point after the 5-minute warmup. Today was no different. I went a little further down the trial again... essentially running for a little over 15-minutes before turning around - same landmark. Today when the cooldown tone sounded I was around 100 feet further down the trail than Sunday. So my gait is beginnning to stretch out. I need to measure that extra distance but I think that the addition actually puts me slightly over the 5k mark for total distance. I've estimated it at a rough 3.2 miles. (This includes the cooldown distance as well... but that is only around 1,000 feet.) This is good because it means that I can complete an entire 30-minute run without having to cross the second intersection at Military Road E.

Wednesday & Thursday are going to be my "weekend" from running. I'll start up week 8 on Friday evening. Next weeks sessions will have 28-minutes running segments. Gee... I wonder if week 9 will be 30-minute segments. That will be three 5k runs in a week.

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