3 Weeks til the next Race: This week's training runs

I had a heck of a time motivating myself to go run this morning after drinking tequila much of the day Saturday and laying a new kitchen floor and baseboards, but I did finally manage to get out the door and on the road and it was a beautiful day for running today. It was supposed to rain today but I woke up to sunny skies and pleasant temps so no excuse not to go run...

Here's my stats for today's run

I took most of the work week off of running due to being busy at work, after work commitments, and still being kind of sore from the last race so I only did one other run and that was Friday evening, and boy was it a good one. I managed to pull off 7:12 per mile for a total of 5 miles.

The next race I'm doing has quite a few hills on it as compared to the last race I ran so I'm trying to prepare myself for that. I managed to average 7:15 per mile today for a total of six miles which is just 0.2 miles short of the distance of my next race (the 10k) and Friday I did a similar course at about the same pace. There's a variety of routes that can be taken in this area and I opted for the steepest option at every chance I got.

I keep telling myself to aim for 42 minutes for this upcoming 10k but I think the amount of hills and the elevation variation could affect my overall time by a minute or two. This is one of the hilliest courses that the Knoxville track club lays out for the year, at least this has been the case for the last 7-8 years which is how long I've been doing this annual event.

To beat my time goal of 42 minutes for this race I'll need to run 6:45 per mile or 4:12 / km which is a pretty fast pace for me over that distance with the hills involved. I did a faster pace in the recent 5k I ran last weekend but that was a relatively flat course for the area I live in.

The next 3 weeks training will be a big factor in whether I can meet or come close to this time goal. Others have told me I've got it in the bag but the course could be something wicked as far as the hills are concerned so who knows.

This week I'm going to continue to do at least 2 days of running on hilly terrain, 1 speed interval run and maybe even run up and down the same hill several times for the 2 hill run days just to acclimate my body to the most severe condition I might encounter on race day 3 weeks from now.

Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was a win because I got my kitchen floor done, did some running and yoga, and accomplished a lot around the house. I'm sorry to see the weekend come to a close but I guess that's just something most of us have to deal with...so goes life. One day at a time.