AZ Run Dad

15:44 was my official time and I'm not sure of my place exactly but I was somewhere around 10th. The races are all divided into age groups so I was running with only 30-39 year olds. This is our second year in a row doing this race and we love it. It's very well organized and the city is very into the race. It's also not a bad place to be hanging out by the ocean. My workouts have been going well lately and I knew I could run somewhere in the high 15s. It was just a matter of executing. I actually got really nervous this morning about being able to put it all together but everything worked out. I convinced myself I would not look at my watch and I would just compete. I've never been able to do that but it paid off. I set my watch to split at each kilometer but I only looked at the 4th one. There are a lot of fast people at this race and there was a group of about 15 that I was at the back of. I felt good and went with it just trying to hang on to the lead group. I had a feeling we were out quick and I hit the mile (clock on the course) in 4:54. Instead of telling myself I was too fast I told myself I was having a good day and kept getting after it. The second mile is the slowest mile on the course and I was able to pass a couple of guys there. I hit the two mile marker at 10:04 and I knew I would break 16. I have no idea what my third mile was but I first saw the clock when it said low 15s with a little more than 200 to go. I was able to have a strong kick and I was really happy with the result. My 1k splits on my watch were 3:05, 3:10, 3:09, 3:11, 3:07. This was an 11 second road PR and 19 seconds faster than last year. If I'm still competing next year I will be back for this race. It's a good one! We stayed around and watched the elite race afterwards. Amazing how fast they were running. The Olympic silver medalist at 5000 meters (Gebremeskel) won in 13:21. They were so impressive. 

6 easy miles in Carlsbad along the ocean before we head home. I added a few slower strides at the end to loosen things up. I'm going to miss the place.

8 easy miles around the neighborhood a few times. My hamstrings were sore from Sunday's 5k. 

AM: 8 miles easy around the neighborhood.

PM: 4 miles easy + 6 x 10 second hill sprints.

LT Mile Repeats 12.3 miles

This was my best threshold session ever. I warmed up 2.5 miles with some drills and a few strides then did 8 x 1 mile repeats on the road with 1 min jogs between. Splits were 5:26,5:25,5:25,5:25,5:24,5:25,5:25,5:21. Very tough towards the end. Cooled down about a mile to finish it off.

10 miles easy + strides. Legs felt great this morning and weather was perfect. It was hard to keep the pace slower than 7 min this morning. Great sign I guess. I'm getting pumped for all the people running Boston this year. Looks like some good weather this time around.