After taking two unplanned days off from running with a cold, I finally got back out on the road Saturday. I eased in with a 30-minute run at 8:37 pace. It took a couple of miles for my legs and lungs to wake up, but I finished feeling strong.
By Sunday, I felt rested and ready for something longer. I set the goal of keeping my long run under 8:00 pace. The first 4 miles clicked by in 31:36. As the sun and heat picked up, I faded slightly, running the next 4 miles right at 8:00 pace. It was a solid effort—hard, but not the kind of run that leaves me wiped out for days. (For comparison, my previous 9-mile run in the heat, a couple weeks ago, was much slower, and it took nearly a whole week to recover.)
Monday’s plan called for a recovery run. I logged 3.17 miles at 9:41 pace with an average HR of 128—super comfortable. I followed that with a 2-mile walk around the track while waiting for Maya to finish XC practice. Later in the day, we added a 3-mile hike. By the end of the day, I had 24,000 steps and legs that still felt fresh.
This morning brought a tempo workout: 10 minutes warm-up, 17 minutes at 7:15 pace, 10 minutes cool-down. I’ll admit I hesitated at first—I’d pushed on Sunday, I’m just coming off a cold, and I haven’t done much sustained faster work lately. But Garmin rarely prescribes harder sessions unless it thinks I’m ready (frequently cancelling or rescheduling planned harder efforts), so I decided to not pass up the opportunity.
The warm-up felt fine but not effortless, and I doubted whether I could really lock into 7:15 pace for the whole 17 minutes. I broke the tempo into mental checkpoints: 1 minute done, 5 minutes, halfway, 2 miles… and before long I was closing it out. I ended up running 2.4 miles at 7:05 pace. The cooldown was tough at first—I wanted to stop—but after a couple of minutes I settled in and finished at 8:07 pace. Total: 37:08, 4.82 miles at 7:42 average. This time, I didn’t bother stretching it to 5 miles. I was perfectly content to call it done.
Looking back, I’m proud of completing the full workout and even hitting the up-tempo portion a little faster than planned without overdoing it. It felt productive, not draining—the kind of effort I can recover from and build on.
As for August, it was another strong month: 117.15 miles at 8:25 average pace, compared with July’s 114.81 miles at 8:47. Most of it was base mileage, but I sprinkled in a few harder efforts. Cooler weather and better fitness have dropped my easy pace by about 20 seconds per mile (from ~8:55 to ~8:35). VO₂ max is up, my confidence is growing, and most importantly, I stayed motivated even through the setback of being sick.
And on the Maya front: she crushed a 12-second PR in her second race of the season, running 13:22 for 2 miles. That capped one of her toughest training weeks yet, which makes me think she’s just getting started. She’s also admitting that 5 miles really isn’t that far anymore—she ran that distance (plus warmup) on both Monday and Tuesday. Her team is looking strong, too—they won Saturday’s meet with just 5 girls competing and two of their best sitting out. If they can stay healthy, they have a legitimate shot at winning state. Couldn’t be prouder of her—and fingers crossed everything keeps moving in the right direction.
