Some weeks feel amazing because you made all your scheduled workouts and did them well. Other weeks feel awful because you didn’t meet your goal number of workouts. This past week was one where I had fantastic runs. However, there were only two of them. I’m pushing myself a little harder in my training now. The two missed workouts were primarily due to feeling exhausted. I keep reminding myself that this is what my current training cycle is about. I need to get used to pushing hard to do hard things. It’s better to be doing this without any expectations of a race. So, when I fall, that fall doesn’t feel as bad. Let’s look at how those two runs went…

The first run was on Tuesday. After two straight gym workouts, I really needed to get outside and run again. So, outside I went. The plan was to replicate what I did on Global Running Day one week prior. On that day, I switched my run/walk intervals on the last mile to run 30 walk 60 seconds. Just like the day before, I really liked the results.

Mile 1, everything felt amazing! I was grooving to the run 30, walk 90 intervals. I was running faster and walking faster and feeling stronger. I finished the mile in 11:55! It was my first sub 12 minute first mile on this route in quite some time. Given these intervals, I felt amazing after one mile and hoped I didn’t go out too quickly. Mile 2, I could feel the strain of running slightly uphill. This mile wasn’t too bad. However, it’s the hardest mile on the route. I finished in 12:29 to put me at 24:24 over the first two miles. Honestly, I can’t wait until I get to the end of mile 2 and I’m back under 24 minutes. Baby steps. Mile 3, I made the switch. It felt okay to do so. I felt stronger than the week before. The last mile was my fastest at 11 minutes even. Overall, I finished 3 miles in 35:23. I was around 10 seconds faster than the week before! Score!

As I said, I missed my scheduled gym workout on Thursday. On Saturday, I was out to make up for my missed 7 miles the weekend before. I really wanted these miles. The 7 mile distance isn’t one I do very often. Since I started running, I’ve only covered this specific distance 9 other times. As I looked back over those times, I’m happy with how this one turned out.

I was going with a run 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds the entire way. Since I haven’t run this far as a running daddy, getting the miles finished was my focus. As it turned out, I did pretty well. Mile 1 felt like old times on this path I haven’t run in a while. Miles 1 and 2 are largely downhill and flat. So, I’m used to getting fast times. I finished mile 1 in 11:20! It’s been a while since I’ve run a mile this fast! It felt amazing! However, I hoped that I didn’t go out too fast. It didn’t feel like it. But, you never know. The second mile was a little slower at 11:49…23:09 for the first 2 miles! If only I could get back to that on my 3 mile route!

By mile 3, I could feel the fatigue starting to set in. Miles 3, 4, and 5 were the hard ones. I gain a lot of altitude in these miles. The inclines aren’t particularly hard. However, it’s the constant slight incline that gets to me. So, predictably, mile three was slow. It was my slowest mile at 12:54. I was at 36:03 by the end of mile 3. That kind of sucked. After the great first 2 miles, I was a little bothered that I was back to over a 12 minute per mile pace so quickly. Heading into mile 4, my focus turned into minimizing my losses. I know this mile is hard. So, I just focused on each run interval as it came and hope for the best. It’s in this mile, that I get to run by Pasadena City College. So, I decided to stop for a pic in front of the school. You’ve got to have some fun with these runs after all.

Anyways, I finished mile 4 in 12:27! At 48:30 over 4 miles, I was only 30 seconds slower than I want to eventually be! This gave me a lot of confidence heading into mile 5. Just keep running! Run 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds. It was in this mile that I was glad for our June Gloom cloud cover. The temps were perfect for running the entire way! I finished mile 5 in 12:42. At 1:01:12 for 5 miles, I was feeling pretty good. The hard miles were now behind me and I was only 1 minute, 12 seconds over a pace that would eventually make me happy.

Mile 6 is largely downhill. I briefly thought about shortening the walk break to 60 seconds. However, I could tell that I wasn’t running as fast as I wanted by this point. Even the slight downhill wasn’t helping me. At 5.5 miles, I knew I wasn’t going to get under the 12 minute per mile pace I so want to be at. I was still going faster than I thought I would at the beginning of the day. However, since I was so close to that 12 minute per mile pace at the end of 5 miles, I wanted to at least try to get under. I finished mile 6 in 11:55. Overall, I was standing at 1:13:10. I only made up 2 seconds on that mile….urgh! Oh well. At least I was doing better than I thought I’d do before the run started.

Half way through mile 7, I could feel the fatigue setting in. This mile was the flattest one with only a slight incline overall. Each quarter-mile, I could see that I was loosing time. This wouldn’t be a sub 12 minute per mile day. However, I knew I’d beat the 1 hour 30 minute finish time I thought I was going to have. So, I’d take that as a victory. I finished the last mile in 12:46. The overall time was 1 hour 26 minutes even! So, I beat my expectation by 4 solid minutes! Lack of sleep…getting up to feed my boy a few times in the middle of the night…and I still beat my previous 7 mile run (on October 3, 2015) by nearly 10 minutes!

This is the tale of the splits. The last column shows the elevation change over each mile. Look at the difference between miles 1, 2, and 6 with miles, 3, 4, and 5.

Last week and this week, at the Studio, they are getting ready for the opening of Shanghai Disneyland. It officially opens on Thursday.

If you’re around a television on Thursday, they will be broadcasting some of the opening ceremonies on the Disney Channel. Check your local listings for times.

Oh, by the way…TODAY is the day registration opens for the 2017 Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend (The Light Side) at the Disneyland Resort! So, who’s already in? What race(s) will you be running in January 2017?