Cool is cool!

So we've had some really weird weather as of late. We had thunderstorms for several straight days. I took a day off from work on Monday and went to the zoo where I got pelted by a hail storm amongst other things. Largest chunks of hail I've ever seen. Some of them were about the size of a small gumball.



So the weather has gotten a bit cooler as of late. It's about 10C in the morning's which is perfect running weather. It allows me to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt and I don't generate too much of a sweat. My runs over the last two days have been good not having to worry about the heat.

On Tuesday, I did a little over 9 miles including 3@LT pace. Did these again around the track. First lap was quite slow at about 7:15 pace. Though I didn't plan it this way, it ended up being a progression run The first 4 laps (1 miles) were done at 7:01 pace, the next 4 at 6:54 and the last 4 at 6:51. I didn't like that the HR kept climbing of the course of the run, but I realize now that the reason for this was that I was gradually speeding up.

This morning, I did about 6.5 miles @ recovery but it included 6 strides. I've noticed that my cadence rate has dropped off a bit over the past few weeks. I noticed leading up to my last marathon that strides really help to improve cadence. With the 5k coming up, i thought it would be a good idea to do some strides now to prepare. It might be a bit too late to derive any benefit from them, but it's a good mental trainer. My HR was way down for this. Probably averaged about 9:25 pace for the non strides part. I'm going to try practicing some 5k running tomorrow around the track. I'm curious as to what the HR will be since it's still going to be quite cool.