In Every Run That Must Be Done; There is an Element of Fun (comments welcome)

Do you have time to split the easy mileage amongst your other running days? I’m not super familiar with the plan you’re following but I know by cutting a day you’re likely throwing off the balance of long and hard runs vs easy mileage.
 
20 Days Until: Chocoholic Frolic 10K

Yesterday was 3 miles easy and 1 Magic Mile (which I did first) It’s amazing how much easier it is to maintain easy pace after you’ve run a mile 3 minutes faster than easy 😂😂 I did 30/30 intervals for the MM and 30/60 for the easy miles.

My MM matched my fastest MM from back in May at 10:21. I’m going to wait until after my 10K in 3 weeks to see if the new paces suggested by the MM are realistic. It says that my half pace would be 12:25, and I don’t believe I can maintain that for 13 miles at this point, but if I do run my 10K at the MM suggested pace of 11:54, maybe I’ll believe more is possible.
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It was a gloomy fall day, and I was pretty chilled when I was in my backyard, so I wore a long sleeved shirt on my run, and that was a mistake—I was dripping by the time I got home 🥵🥵
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Today was slightly cooler, but sunnier; of course, the sun didn’t come out until I was a quarter mile from home, so I had to do the whole thing without sunglasses 🫤 I also failed at running math—it turns out, combining two 2.5 mile routes does not equal one 5 mile route when there’s a 1 mile overlap between the routes 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️
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My MM matched my fastest MM from back in May at 10:21. I’m going to wait until after my 10K in 3 weeks to see if the new paces suggested by the MM are realistic. It says that my half pace would be 12:25, and I don’t believe I can maintain that for 13 miles at this point, but if I do run my 10K at the MM suggested pace of 11:54, maybe I’ll believe more is possible.
I feel this soooo much. I just tell myself that it’s the pace I should be capable off after a good training cycle, not “I should be able to run a half at this pace currently.” I had half mile HM pace repeats today, with a 4min recovery interval in between each one. They felt doable during the repeats, but that was probably strongly influenced by the recovery periods.
 
It is so hard to layer right in the fall. I did the same today and went out with shorts and long sleeves at 50F, but it warmed up on me and I was done.
 
I also failed at running math—it turns out, combining two 2.5 mile routes does not equal one 5 mile route when there’s a 1 mile overlap between the routes

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that can't do running math. Of course, I also struggle with math when I'm NOT running so that probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
 
10 Days Until: Chocoholic Frolic 10K

It’s been a bit since I posted here, but I have been doing (most) of my runs. Last Tuesday was 3 easy miles, and they were pretty easy and I did them at lunch.
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Last Thursday was 30 minutes at 10K pace, and I did that once right after work (actually, I was way behind on work, so I stopped, went for my run, got cleaned up, and then worked some more) My pace mile to mile was not very even, but I ended up almost in the right pace for the overall 🤷‍♀️ It was a lovely fall day, not too sunny, not too cloudy and just under 60°F
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Saturday’s 3 miles at 10K pace did not happen. My uncle was in town to help with fall yardwork, so I took most of Friday off for that, and we did a bunch on Saturday too, and my Achilles was feeling a little tender, so I didn’t want to push it. But I had a lot of time on my feet. Sunday was written as a 6 mile easy run, so I added an extra quarter mile for I could earn my CrD virtual 10K medal. And then, since I skipped Saturday’s 10K pace miles, I decided to do the first 3 miles on Sunday at 10K pace. I think I came down with a short illness, because the whole run felt like it was taking more effort than it should have, and I was shocked to see some of the easy pace miles being as slow as they were when I got home. And that evening, I dozed off on the couch and woke up drenched, as if a fever had broken.
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We had an amazing sunset on Friday!
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Some of our maple leaves did a thing where they turned brownish everywhere but the veins, and they looked really cool while standing under the tree.
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We also had some giant maple leaves about the size of my face
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Yesterday, I finally got everything booked for Springtime Surprise. I had been holding off because the price of my preferred flight down was an insane $369! And it left at like 6:30am and didn’t get me into Orlando until 1:45pm because Southwest doesn’t fly direct from MSP to MCO. I really didn’t want to spend that much money for only a half day of vacation, but I also didn’t want to save money and get no vacation time on Wednesday by taking a cheaper, but later, flight.

I finally had a brainstorm yesterday morning: is there a cheap later flight on Tuesday, and would the difference be enough to cover the cost of an extra night in a Pop Preferred room? (I learned my lesson in this year’s Springtime—spring for the preferred room) The answer was yes, it would be basically a wash, money-wise, but I would then get the entire day on Wednesday for park time, and I would only have to use an extra 3 hours of PTO (of which I have an excess because my company is owned by a European company, with European attitudes towards vacation time 😁😁)

So I booked my flights, booked my room, and booked my Sunshine/Mears transport and all is right with the world
 
5 Days Until: Chocoholic Frolic 10K

We had all the leaves fall this week, I spent all my lunch break blowing leaves, which left no time for running on weekdays. So I made my 3 mile run on Sunday into a 6.58 mile run to make up for Tuesday’s missed run, and I moved the repeats to this week in place of my 35 minute 10K pace run, since I’ve got a whole 10K race on Saturday anyway.

This is my grandpa, with one of many many loads of leaves to be hauled from the backyard down to the leafy area behind him.
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With Sunday’s run added to my tracker, I’ve officially hit 1000 miles for the year across running, walking, and stationary biking.
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I decided to do something different for Sunday’s run and run the Katrina Lake loop after dark. The park is open until 10pm, so I wanted to give it a try. It was very peaceful, only one other person out there (traveling in the opposite direction at about the same pace, so I saw him twice). I spooked a couple deer at one point. The only problem is, my lamp died about a mile from the end, so I had to use my phone for about a half mile until I came out of the wood and into the open field, where the moonlight was more than bright enough to see the path. I blame my grandma, because she jinxed me by asking if my lights were charged up 🤣🤣
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The moon was just rising when I started my run
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I’m so excited to have the dates in pace for the 2024/2025 runDisney season! I’m glad that Wine & Dine and Marathon Weekend are landing exactly where we thought they would so I can do them, and Springtime Surprise is at a good time, too. It’s nice that they’re moving the Disneyland half further from MW, even though I can’t swing a DL weekend next season.
 
Very cool to try the night run! I think they can be fun.

I've been meaning to say that I admire all the work you put into maintaining your lot and landscaping. It's definitely a lot of work!
 
1,000 miles is awesome!!

That moon rise is really stunning too. Must have been a great run 🏃‍♀️
I’m not 100% happy that winter seems to have jumped the queue over fall, but I’m very happy it’a not summer anymore. It’s was 30°F last night, before the windchill.
 
How much did you guys end up getting?? I got a little over 2 inches (NW metro), but I think you aren’t very far from me. Was not expecting this much and to have it still stuck to the ground. I was just saying on another journal I think the snow might stick for a few days.
 
How much did you guys end up getting?? I got a little over 2 inches (NW metro), but I think you aren’t very far from me. Was not expecting this much and to have it still stuck to the ground. I was just saying on another journal I think the snow might stick for a few days.
Probably 2 inches at most in the west metro
 

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