Lake Needwood with Heather & Katie the super dog

Long run with my friend Heather & Katie (her sweetie-pie doggie). Longest run since last summer. We walked the first .5 miles as a warm-up. My quads are still really tight from Wednesday’s track workout even though I stretched last night. I felt like I was trying to move 50 pound weights attached to each leg (LOL). I also need to pay more attention to my fueling during the run. I ate a Hammer Gel after the first hour, but needed to drink more. When I did, my calves loosened up.

I’m not concerned with the time we clocked today as the goal was to clock time on my feet. I didn’t even bother to stop my watch when we waited to cross streets. We also ran with Heather’s dog Katie. Katie’s a sweetie, hates bridges (had to carry her over one of them and coax her across another one), and loves to explore. We stopped quite a bit, especially to say hi to the other doggies 🙂 We did an out and back and were going to go out for 4.5 miles and then turn-around, but the path was completely muddy/flooded at one point so we had to turn-around. My Garmin was also a bit wonky again (we were on a wooded path) and said we were running a 14:00+ and even a 16:00+ pace and Heather’s monitor had us at a 13:00/13:15 pace. I know we were walking very slow, but all but three of the best paces per lap (mile) were under 11:00 pace so we were moving pretty well when we were moving. The average pace was slower than usual, but whatever – it’s been a long week, particularly with my trip to Seattle. Bottom line is we had an awesome time!