First week of workouts complete!

California International Marathon (congrats Ryan Bak for 2nd male overall and Olympic Trials Qualifier!), RNR Vegas.

Thursday, December 1st - 7 miles (2 up, 3x1 mile tempo, 2 down). Nice cool evening for a workout, and had in a weird way been looking forward to this one since it had been awhile since we had a workout. Ran with Crystal to Ebbets, and did some quick dynamic stretching before doing the workout. Usually I start to crap out after the first rep, but felt pretty strong the entire way through. Last quarter of the last rep, worked on sprint form which sped it up a bit. Great workout, very pleased. 16:20 up, 6:14, 6:13, 6:02 mile splits, 16:08 down.

Friday, December 2nd - 6 miles. Solo in Forest Park after work. Didn't feel too hot starting out, but went at it and ran at a decent clip. Wanted to get this done as soon as possible so I could go home and start the weekend. 44:59 total.

Saturday, December 3rd - 8 miles. Ran with Pat, Crystal, and Mike. Wasn't feeling very good (too much fun playing Kinect Sports 2 the night before), and was dragging like no other. Pretty sure any pace would have been torture, quite honestly. Glad to get this one over with. 1:14:52 total.

Sunday, December 4th - 12 miles. Last 2 at Half Marathon pace, the workout that I had been dreading ever since I saw the schedule. Old faithful/Home Depot route, which eliminated any out and back and kept the last 2 miles fairly flat. Raining lightly, but decided to bite the bullet and get at it. Amazing how a good night's rest makes a difference, as we were moving pretty good starting out. Mother Nature decided to have fun with us, and kept raining harder and harder as we got further and further out. I was pretty soaked 6 miles out, and my shirt felt like a heavy towel at that point. Saw Megan about 9 miles out, sped up instinctively to catch her, and worked the pace up to half marathon pace. My Garmin was playing some evil games with me (showed 7:00 min/mile pace when it was actually 6:40's), so was about to have a meltdown thinking I had to drop another 35 seconds/mile when I was already struggling. Crystal got me through though, and we hit her neighborhood for the last mile. Her Garmin strap broke, which we stopped to pick up and cost us a few seconds, but still pretty happy all in all with the workout, despite the hard effort. 1:31 something total time: 6:45, 6:22, 6:23 were the last 3 miles. Pretty sure we almost negative split every mile. Watched/followed online the RNR Vegas Marathon at night. Had a lot of fun following Ben race the marathon. He was 2nd at mile 16 and catching the leader, but unfortunately had some awful stomach cramps which ended his race. Hell of an effort, nonetheless!!!!

49 miles this week ( almost went out to hit one more for 50 but was pretty dead all day afterwards). Very pleased with the first week of workouts.

Big River Monday run tonight - nice and easy is the plan, as my legs feel like I raced hard yesterday. The cold weather moves in, so need to break out all my winter running apparel!