7 Up

What a different six weeks make. On September 10, I did my first really legit training run for next month's Nashville Half. It was seven miles. In a burst of ambition, I planned a route that I had not run before, which in hindsight was probably a mistake. On the way out, the mile between 2.5 and 3.5 is a steady uphill. According to Minnie (if I'm reading her correctly, which is by no means a certainty), the rise is about 200 feet. Add to this the fact that the weather was 85° and sunny that day, and the result was a pretty miserable and discouraging outing.

With the race now only three weeks (!) away, yesterday was time for me to run seven again--this time as an "easy" week, between last week's 10 and next's 12 (last long run before the race). The temp was about 25° cooler (still sunny), which made a huge difference. The six intervening weeks of training may also have helped. In any case, I finished eight minutes faster than in September, from 1:42 to 1:38 (13:26 pace). I will confess to cheating a teeny bit on my intervals on the way home, but DANGIT those hills are killer.