getting colder...

Well, I've started wearing long pants and sometimes even long sleeves on my runs. I think it's officially fall.

I forgot my watch when I went to speed work last week, so I have no idea whether I succeeded at the 200m cut downs. I ran four sets though, when the coach only suggested three, so I felt ambitious. Most of the rest of the team is tapering for the marathon, and there's really no reason for me to do that.

I did 5K on the treadmill on Friday at a 10-minute mile. I forgot to change the incline, though, so it didn't really mimic running outside. Oh well.

I ran 8 miles on the lakefront path on Saturday morning. I felt pretty good doing it, too. I didn't get tired until the last mile. I think my pace was somewhere between a 10- and 11-minute mile.

Then I ran 5K outside on Sunday (I didn't want to have to run Monday morning because my mom was staying with me Sunday night). I went around the parks again -- it's a nice route. Eventually I might experiment with running through the parks, but I might have to get a GPS for that because otherwise it would be hard to know how far I was going.

I went to speed work last night. We did a mile repeat, then a 1000m repeat, then an 800m repeat. It's supposed to be a really good workout for preparing for the marathon Sunday. My friends left after that, but I did 3 more easy laps to get my mileage for the night up to 5 miles. I'm a control freak like that.

Tomorrow I need to do another 5K, then Saturday I'm shooting for 8.5 miles. Then Sunday I am volunteering at the marathon, which entails being on my feet for almost 8 hours and becoming completely covered in Gatorade. Yet I'm really looking forward to it.