Bay Days 5 Mile

Another small step in the right direction. Two and a half weeks ago I ran 6:03 pace for a 5K in my first race since April 2. Today I ran 30:28 for nearly twice the distance at the Bay Days 5 mile Race (6:05 pace) on a very hot and humid day running pretty consistent splits. I felt much stronger than my last race though I don't have my usual final mile finishing gear that I have when I'm at the top of my game. Though I was a minute and a half slower than last year, I'm happy that I'm slowly getting my fitness back, and hopefully I'll end up salvaging this year with some better performances in the fall. I've decided that I'm not fit enough to be running the masters track nationals at the end of July so I've been building up my strength for cross country and longer road races. The past two weeks I've run 41 and 45 miles on 6 days a week with some solid tempo and fartlek workouts. I'm going to follow the Antonio Cabral cross country program for the rest of the summer, running a longer tempo each week and alternating hill and fartlek workouts like 1:00 on/1:00 off as my second key workout while trying to slowly build my weekly mileage. Next up for me is the Shot in the Dark 4 mile race, which is an early evening race in downtown Cleveland on July 16. Hopefully I'll make another leap like I did today from my June 15 race.