Unintentional extra credit

Yesterday was a good double...went to swim team at SU in the morning and then hit a spin class with my friend, Angie, at Allstar Fitness at noon. She hooked me up with a 1-week guest pass and the class was great--one of the best instructors I've ever seen and the class was huge (with really nice bikes, too). Good energy and I worked much harder than I would have riding on my own on the trainer, for sure. I was a bit body tired later in the afternoon and was wondering if the butt kicking I had on the bike would have an effect on today's long run. Fortunately, though, my legs weren't hungover and I felt good again today.

Today was long run day. I had a morning meeting and the weather forecast was awful, so I decided to sleep in and knock it out a little later after my meeting when there would be more light and with food and caffeine in my system. The morning news said it was supposed to rain with wind gusts up to 50mph by noon/afternoon, so I was both dreading it and wanting to get it over with before trees and houses started blowing around (the weather guy on TV was almost yelling "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!").

I got out about 10:30 a.m. and drove down to the BG trail by U Village to start. I guesstimated a route and took the GPS of course, to verify along the way. The workout was supposed to be an 8 miler with the last mile at a "pick up" pace. I ran the trail toward Montlake, over the Montlake bridge, up Eastlake and over by the Howe St. stairs (where I did what turned out to be an unnecessary out-and-back further south past the stairs). By this point, there had been a few wind gusts and showers, but also sun breaks and the whole wind/rain prediction was fiction...I was happily too warm and took off my gloves. Anyway, then I went up the Howe St. stairs, back down 10th, over/through Interlakken to 23rd, then back on the trail to the car. As I was approaching the 7 mile mark, I knew I had quite a bit more than a mile to get back to the car, but decided to do the 8th mile at the push pace and then whatever was left as slower extra credit. I took it up to a tempo-ish feeling pace, which turned out to be an 8:23 mile (not bad!), then took it back down to moderate and stopped at 9 miles. I was not looking forward to this run (and the stupid weather) but it turned out great. When I came back to the dogsit house, I did planks with one dog trying to snuggle and a cat who jumped on my back. Makes things a little more interesting!

Now it's blowing pretty good outside, but who cares!

9 mile run:

7.1 miles: 1:12:31 (Avg pace 10:13, Avg HR 137)
1 mile pick up 8:23 (Avg HR 155)
.9 mile 8:25 (Avg pace 9:21, Avg HR 149)

Total time: 1:29:19