July 17: Today I went on a run, otherwise called the 'Sunday Run' with my friend, Sam. It’s a five-mile course that runs through a few streets and a trail and winds up back at my house. It was nice to stretch my legs out after such a short week. (For a little back ground information: The reasons my weeks are jumping around is due to the fact I went on a mission trip and I only got a few runs in. Not to mention, they were all “social runs” so I got no extensive work in.)
July 19: I took the 18th off just to let my body get used to running again and hydrate a little more. Today, though, I did a four-mile run with Sam at a pretty good pace. Most of our runs are at an average pace, but today we pushed it a little more. She’s gotten to the point where she’s really started to push me towards the end. I mentioned before that she’s in college now and because she doesn’t run competitively anymore. She doesn’t mind picking it up to a good race pace every now and then. It’s great because I get my distance in while just talking to her, but have to work for it at the end!
July 21: I took the 20th off to prepare myself for my next run. Sam and I decided to stretch it out a little more than we had been doing. We were talking about possibly doing a nine mile course, but once I got out there I knew nine miles just wasn’t going to happen today. I was throwing up left and right, which for anyone that’s seen me run is no surprise at the end, but it was during the middle of our run this time. The heat was getting to me and I felt dizzy, which shows that despite my hydration the day before, it still wasn’t enough.
July 22: Today was just a nice recovery run. It was a short, relaxed three miles at a slower pace. Not only was I recovering from yesterday, but trying to get my legs an easy run in because I knew tomorrow’s course would NOT be easy-breezy.
July 23: My dad, Mr. Bill (my dad’s best friend and long-time running buddy of 19 years), Mr. Bill’s son Andy (my best friend), and a good friend of ours, Ben (also the captain of Andy’s XC team) drove to Columbia to run the Sandhills course. For anyone that’s run the 5K up there, you’d know it’s a tough course, especially for my region.
Now, if you think that’s tough, just think about this: there are TONS of other trails back there and that huge hill in the course is NOTHING compared to the hills we discovered today. My dad and Mr. Bill took off one way, while the boys and I took off another way. As probably guessed, I’m definitely not as fast as Ben or Andy. I was probably a bit of a drag in their eyes, but they really pushed me and made me work for those eight miles (on top of how hard those hills were to run up!).
Weekly total: 27
Total mileage: 182