It was a combination of factors that made this morning's run so great.

First, the weather played nice. It was fairly cool out this morning and the humidity was at the lowest it's been in weeks. It was a nice surprise to go outside and not feel oppressive humidity.

Second, this morning's 3 miler was an easy run so I just let myself enjoy it.

I didn't push the pace at all and just cruised up and down the hills without too much effort.

Toward the end, I could really feel some fatigue and tightness in my left leg. I made sure to come home and really stretch out. After a day of speed work yesterday, i wanted to make sure that I got everything nice and loose today.

My hamstrings are still a bit tight and I'll probably have to make a date with the foam roller later today to make sure I get all the kinks out, but overall it was a solid run.

I'm really getting used to doing these shorter morning runs without music. I thought that would be something I never really adjusted too, but it's getting easier and easier to go without it. Part of that is probably because I'm not too excited about the music on my iPod at the moment. It's gotten a little stale and I could probably use a good music update, but I enjoy the quiet on my morning runs.

Stats:
1: 9:46
2: 9:56
3: 9:38

Coming back from a long weekend at the beach and jumping right into training is rough!

Seriously I spent several days doing nothing but this:



So waking up to do intervals at 5 a.m. was not easy.

But I did it.

My schedule called for 5x400 at 5K pace. It's been a long time since I've run a 5K and I'm not really sure that my old 5K pace is the most accurate indicator of my speed lately. I decided to do each interval in less than two minutes to see how that I made me feel.

The first interval was tough, but after that I found I was going faster than two minutes for each interval. I'm not sure what my average pace worked out to, I couldn't get Garmin to cooperate that early in morning (user error for sure) so I don't have individual lap break downs.

I'll have to look at the speed issue a little more closely to find what pace using.

Since there's no track near my house that I can get to that early in the morning, I used a make shift track, which is also known as the sidewalk in front of my community. It's a very long and fairly flat stretch of sidewalk that I found works just as well. I measured it out yesterday so I have the right distance.

Nothing says speed work has to be done on a track.

Day one of training: in the books.

I had a few veggies left over from last week's CSA pick up that I wanted to use before they went bad.

I mentioned in an earlier post that summer squash and zucchini are two of my favorite summer vegetables because there is so much you can do with them.

One of my favorite ways to cook them is to grill them up.

I chopped them into about quarter inch circles.


Then spread them out on the grill.


They only need about three or four minutes on each side before they are done. They'll still be a little crunchy but not mushy.


I paired my grilled squash with some couscous.

Then smothered the whole thing with BBQ sauce. Mmmmm.

Bonus: I had enough leftovers to last me until Wednesday!