National Running Day + New Shoes

In honor of National Running day (June 2nd), I had my first tempo run for this round of training (or more truthfully, yay! running day falls on a day where I have a run planned!!).  After ~15 hours of freak out over my Garmin being wonky (it wouldn't upload my Tuesday night run, then the screen was fading in and out, it wouldn't Unlock itself, it changed the time to some weird time in the future [literally it was tomorrow in Garmin watch land], and the usual fixes:  plugging it in to the charger, were doing nothing to correct it.)  When I got home from work and unplugged it from the charger it went blank.  After attempting to reset it for what felt like 5 minutes, I set it down and started looking for my old school running watch.  To which it beeped back to life for me.  Unfortunately, I had to go through all my settings again, not realizing I had to set it to the autolap function that I've come to know and love (this is foreshadowing, kids).

I got ready for my run and headed outside.  Gorgeous weather, like whoa.  70 degrees, breezy bordering on windy, low humidity.  It's almost like I dialed up this weather.  I had 5 miles to do with 4 @ 8:15 tempo pace.  I started out and ran the first mile (warm up mile) at a slower pace.  I looked down at my watch around the 1 mile mark, and was bummed to see that I must've missed the "chirp" and mile time.  The first tempo mile was all over the place.  My legs are used to running 9:23 pace and 7:00-7:30 pace for speedwork.  8:15?  What the heck does that feel like??  I figured I would run what I felt like 8:15, and reassess at the 2 mile mark.  The end of the first tempo mile came and went without a chirp from the Garmin.  And then I realized, I was an idiot.  I took a couple of seconds to reset my watch.  After some quick calculations (which are always 100% wrong while running, I've come to realize) I thought my tempo mile was ~8:20.  So I sped up.

The rest of the tempo miles felt less comfortable than I remember them feeling, but my pace was all over the place, and my garmin's pace wasn't helping either.  Pretty sure I'm not running a 10-11 minute mile here.....turd.  The last 3 tempo miles were much faster than I had planned, which makes me feel good that my tempo pace doesn't hurt as much as I thought.  Also, after I got home and had time to do some simple math with oxygen in my brain, I realized that the first tempo mile was actually spot on, soooooo I should've kept going with that, instead of kicking up the pace.

I did 5 miles in 41:53 for a pace of 8:23.  Avg. tempo pace = 8:03
1. 9:40
2. 8:14
3. 7:58
4. 8:03
5. 7:57

Goal for next tempo run:  find the tempo pace and stick with it.

In other super awesome fabulous news, I got new shoooooooooooes.  I love new shoes.  After my foot was hurting post-marathon, I thought my shoes might be to blame.  Now I realize my body was still just healing up.  Regardless I only have about 2 weeks of running left in my current shoes, so I bought the same pair in a 3rd color:  blue!  They're pretty cute, and they scream, "Jeri!  Run fast in me!  Half marathon PR!  5k PR!  Now now now!!"  Demanding little b's, no?  I think I will try my damndest to oblige.

"One of these things doesn't belong...one of these things just isn't the same...."

Answer:  dirt.  And sweat.  Oh so much sweat.  All I need is the red and teal versions (made especially for zappos.com) in order to complete the Nimbus 11 family.  Loyal like whoa. :)

P.S.  Honestly, who makes a flower-like arrangement out of their running shoes???  freak.

And also, to further celebrate National Running Day (along with the fact that I got paid on Friday) I registered for all the races that have a June deadline (I only get paid once/month.  Yes it sucks royally.  Luckily I'm a credit counselor and know how to budget my $$$ [more like $] to a T!)  I signed up for a local 1 mile + 5k for 2 1/2 weeks and another 5k in 4 1/2 weeks.  With a half marathon squeezed in between.  I guess I am listening to the shoes already.  At least they seem to be a good influence so far. ;)