Tropical Storm Edouard

9.10 miles, 1:10:13, 7:43 pace, Max HR = 146, Avg HR = 134

Tropical Storm Edouard fizzled and the only impact to me was a work day from home and a spongy run around Memorial Park in lieu of Tornado speed work. Yes, I said "spongy" because the Memorial Park crushed granite surface feels like running on a sponge when it's wet. Today's run was an ideal situation because of the surface and because of the reprieve from the scorching temperatures we've been experiencing lately -- which is why I was surprised to only see one other Tornado show up to our scheduled speed workout. Paco and I skipped the 6x400 that Leno planned for us in lieu of some easy miles. He's been pounding out the miles lately, and picked up a lap before I even showed up. (About halfway through the run we did see Chino.)

I'm not certain it's in my best interest to run true "speed" work at this stage of my training. The wear and tear on the body probably isn't worth the extra speed I'll gain since I'm 166 days away from the Houston Marathon. And if I do speed work, I'd prefer to do repeats of 800 meters or longer. I'll reevaluate that in the fall.

So it was a good run. My heart rate stayed relatively low, averaging 70% of my max. I'm beginning to think that it's in the realm of possibility that I will break three hours at the marathon since I am finding it relatively easy to do the same workouts as others who consistently break three. The two things I feel as though I need to work up to are 5M tempo runs at about 6:15 pace, and 20M long runs. Easier said than done since my best tempo runs are just below 6:40 and 15 miles at a fair pace makes me pretty tired.

Last 7 days = 69.57 miles

Mile Splits today:
7:51, 7:41, 7:48, 7:50, 7:50, 7:46, 7:39, 7:31, 7:46