Weekend Running Recap

50 degrees! The sun! I was ecstatic about Saturday's weather, as I'm sure all other runners were. After the brutal winter we've had in Pittsburgh (worst ever!), it felt awesome. Most of the ice on the trail has melted. I'd been running through Downtown and the Strip because the businesses usually clear their sidewalks, but it was nice to get back to the trail. It was a short (30 minute) easy run day for me.
Blue skies! Sun! Wearing Lululemon: speed tights in deep zinfandel, scoop-neck long-sleeve swiftly in white, race me long-sleeve in black stripe
We had a play date with a couple and their newly adopted greyhound, Jive, in the afternoon and took a nice long walk through Regent Square. I'd warned them about how goofy Django is and how excited he would be when we met them, but Django pretended he was a good, normal dog and was pretty chill the whole walk.
Jive on left and Django on right, neither cooperating for the picture

Good shot of Jive on left

Django was in good-boy mode the whole walk.
Sunday was cooler but not bad at all--about 40 and partly sunny when I went out for a run. This run was a 60-minute race simulation run according to Coach Jenny's 5k intermediate training plan. The run is broken into three segments: the first 20-minute segment is easy, the second is moderate (where you can hear your breathing), and the third is hard but controlled. This was my first race simulation run; technically the second, but the first was during all the ice so I pretty much was at the mercy of the sidewalks the whole run. Knowing the run was going to get progressively harder, I started out very easy and was averaging an 11:36 pace. The second segment was still fairly easy, and I was averaging an 11:15 pace. I ran the third segment hard; my heart rate was sky high. I was struggling a lot in the last five minutes, but I stuck it out and pretended it was the last five minutes of a race. I had my Garmin set to an average pace, and by the time I finished my average for the hour was 10:52. I felt great after the run and liked that this type of run will help me build strength and stamina when my legs aren't fresh. And I think this was my first real negative split!

Weekly Recap

Total weekly mileage: 15:98

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