This past week completed week 8 of my 16-week Run Less Run Faster (affiliate link) training cycle for my OBX Half Marathon which puts me half way home! I was thrilled to be back on track with my running friends, and even though my track repeats and tempo runs are more of a solo event, it’s nice to see my friends in the vicinity.

My friend Tracy and I decided to meet back at the middle school track on Tuesday morning after finding the high school track gates locked the week before. Fortunately, all traces of goose poop had been washed away by the rain and other than being startled by three snorting deer standing next to the track, we had a relatively uneventful run.

 

I was scheduled to run a 1-mile warm-up and 1-mile cool-down sandwiched around 12 x 400’s with 90 second rest intervals and a 2:30 longer rest after the first 6 intervals. One lap around the track is just a tad longer than 400 meters and I used to let that drive me nuts watching my watch and stopping right at 400 meters. Now I just count each lap as a 400 and don’t sweat it. In the dark, it’s hard for me to easily see my pace so I make fewer adjustments as I round the track. My plan called for me to run each 400 at a 7:18 pace; and I hit them at 8:03, 7:53, 7:10, 7:49, 8:02, 7:34, 7:00, 7:03, 6:59, 6:57, 6:47, and 7:04.

Thursday’s run was a 7-miler with 4 miles at tempo pace – 1-mile warm-up, 2 miles at tempo, 1 mile easy, 2 miles at tempo, and a 1-mile cool-down. My goal pace for my tempo miles was 8:28 and I hit them at 8:51, 8:59, 8:58, and 8:21. Not great, but better than I’ve been doing on my tempo runs. Even though I ran alone, it was nice chatting with my friends as we stretched after our run.

 

Tracy and I schemed to head out a little later on Saturday morning and met at the W&OD Trail at 6:45. Bill was heading out on his bike as I got into my car to drive to the trail. He planned to ride in the opposite direction for a while, and then turn and ride toward us.

After running past the quarry overlook, our discussion turned toward the copperhead that was spotted there this past week. That prompted us to share a few more snake stories, and later on Tracy even saw a snake curled up alongside the trail. I missed the snake sighting, but I did pause long enough to snap a picture of this little belly-up mole and push him to the side of the trail with my shoe. It wasn’t until looking at the picture that Tracy and I noticed his little tongue sticking out.

 

Bill caught us in Leesburg and escorted us for about a half mile before continuing on with his ride. I was scheduled to run 8 miles and Tracy was scheduled for 10. We decided to make our decision at the 4-mile turnaround as to whether we’d turn and Tracy would run 2 more miles at the end, or I’d tack on 2 miles with her. I felt good so we ran another mile before turning around.

 

On our run home, we saw fellow Cruisers Vamshi and Amit heading toward us. As Amit and I were starting to hug on the trail, a biker came riding toward us very rapidly and yelled, “That’s dumber than dirt!” Oops, sorry! After moving off the trail, and making sure no one was coming our way, we posed for a quick picture before finishing our runs. Tracy and I finished our 10-mile run at a 10:27 average pace – I was scheduled to keep it at 10:48, but have been trying to keep my long runs at a 10:30.

 

Saturday afternoon we had an early birthday party for our son Joseph while he, Julie, Daniel, and Jess were visiting for the weekend. In addition to Whole Foods guac and queso dip, I put together a fruit platter for our appetizer. Julie’s family joined us and we had a wonderful afternoon celebrating Joseph while watching Virginia Tech football. Later, after dinner, we had a chocolate and vanilla ice cream cake, Joseph’s favorite.

 

Even though I didn’t hit my tempo paces on Thursday, I’m quite happy with how my training is going now that I’m off the sand and back on asphalt. I feel confident that cooler fall temperatures will make hitting my paces even easier.

Looking ahead to this coming week, I have a throwback race recap scheduled for Tuesday and hope to have my Shenandoah Half Marathon recap ready to post on Thursday. The storage on my MacBook was full this week so I couldn’t edit any of my pictures to prepare them for the recap and get it up this past week as planned. Fortunately, my favorite IT guy deleted a bunch of GoPro movies and other stuff from my laptop freeing up plenty of storage and I am good to go.

In addition to the runs I mentioned above, here’s a run-down of other workouts I completed this past week…

 

Fitness tools beyond the equipment in my gym that I used during the week included:

Cameras used for blog photography include:

 

  • Questions:
  • Fall seems to be teasing us; what’s it like where you live? ~ Tuesday felt good, but then the humidity sneaked back in…
  • What’s your favorite kind of birthday cake? ~ chocolate with white icing for me 😀
  • Did you race this weekend? 

 

Have a great week!

 

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on the blue product link and then make a purchase, I will receive a commission for referring you. You will pay no more or less for the product; however, Amazon will show their gratitude for my referral by paying me.

 

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I’m linking up with Holly at HoHo Runs and Tricia from MissSippiPiddlin for their Weekly Wrap. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!

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I’m also linking up with Courtney from Eat Pray Run DC for her Training Recap linkup. Be sure to check out how Courtney the other great bloggers joining the linkup are doing on their fall marathon and half marathon training.