Week 7: 7/23 - 7/29

Weekly Summary
This week was a bit different from the others because of the SF Half at the end of the week. I did a short hill workout on Wednesday, and short "long run" on Friday, and then a long "tempo run" on Sunday. Anyway, it was still a pretty good week overall. I felt happy with the half marathon, even though it's much slower than my PR of 65:17. I guess I still have a lot of work ahead of me. I was pretty tired and sore after the half marathon, even though I didn't go all out.
Resting HR: 52
Total Weekly Mileage: 88

Sunday 7/29
AM - San Francisco Half Marathon. 3rd place, 71:11 (5:27/mile pace). Felt pretty good today. It's the first time I've raced since last November. The course wasn't too bad. The first several miles in Golden Gate Park had some uphill sections, but most of the rest of the course was flat with some downhill sections. I didn't really have anyone to run with, since the two guys ahead of me lost me pretty early on. So the entire time, I was just dodging all of the marathon runners (the half marathon was the SECOND half of the full marathon, and started about 2 hours into the full marathon). It was a good workout, and I guess I'm happy with my time, given that I've only been running for 8 weeks.
17 miles

Saturday 7/28
AM - Mitchell Park with 2 strides. Since I'm racing tomorrow, I just decided to do an easy 4 miles in the morning and did a couple of strides at the end.
4 miles

Friday 7/27
AM - Russian Ridge. Met up with Tom McGlynn and Xavier at 7am to run along the ridge. It was really nice out there this morning. I love this route. We kept the pace pretty easy but steady, and didn't stop once. Did the loop by the lake in about 1:45.
15 miles

Thursday 7/26
AM - Mitchell Park with 4 strides. Easy run through Mitchell Park. Felt sore this morning, so it was good to loosen up. I wasn't planning on doing strides, but I got inspired to do them at the end of my run. I want to start doing more strides on my easy days.

PM - Stanford campus loop. Did an easy jog to Stanford and around Campus Drive today.
11 miles

Wednesday 7/25
AM - Hill Workout @ The Stanford Dish. 3 x uphill with downhill rest (5:05, 4:54, 4:51). This is the first time that our group decided to do a hill workout. We met at the track, jogged over to the dish, and did 3 uphill repeats. The workout was really short today--I'm not sure why we all stopped after 3 repeats, but I didn't mind. I felt pretty good, and I was able to run towards the front of the group today.

PM - Wunderlich Park. Went back to Wunderlich Park this afternoon and did the big loop again. I don't know if it was a good idea to go on a 10-mile hill run after the hill workout this morning, but I wanted to partially make up for yesterday's disaster. I definitely felt fatigued during the run this afternoon, but I'm glad that I got it in.
20 miles

Tuesday 7/24
PM - San Bruno. I was planning to meet up with Johann today and go on a longer run, but the power went out in the city, and Johann had to stay at work to fix things at Tagged. I went to San Bruno anyway because I was going to the ball game in the city. However, I wish I hadn't tried to run there because it was cold, windy, and the trails were overgrown. I did several small loops because I couldn't manage to get very far without running through lots of bushes. My legs also didn't feel like going far today, so I called it a day at about 6 miles.
6 miles

Monday 7/23
PM - Wunderlich Park. I ran a big loop around Wunderlich Park today. Felt much better than last time I ran here, but it's still not easy to do the uphill part without stopping.

AM - Mitchell Park with 4 strides. Did an easy run around Mitchell Park this evening, and on the way back, I decided to do 4 x 30 sec strides. I was a bit tired/sore at the beginning of the run, but loosened up by the end.
15 miles