Had a great weekend hanging with my friends and doing activities. We got a little culture in, going to Olana, home of the famous landscape artist Frederic Church where we took a house tour. Admittedly, I’m not much of a history maven, so I was just happy the place was air-conditioned. Afterwards we went to Mama Mia! which Nick and I pretty much despised, though the rest of the group liked it. I think Abba is pretty high on the genius scale as far as pop-songwriting, so the familiar tunes were the only thing that kept me from wanting to poke its movie eyes out.

Got back to Philly yesterday afternoon and I’m happy to say I’ve already completed today’s hot, miserable tempo run – 10 w/5 tempo. You know it’s trouble when it’s 81 degrees out at 5:30 am.  It was 6:15 when I got outside.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to dreading this workout. I mean, tempos are hard on their own, without being couched between 5 extra miles. Ordinarily I’d do all but one of the regular miles up front, then the tempo, leaving a single mile left for cooldown, but it wasn’t going to get cooler and I figured I’d better get the tempo crap done sooner rather that later, so 3 miles, then the 5 tempo, then 2 sluggish miles at the end.

The tempo was good, near the top I passed a guy going the other way and when I turned around, he was ahead but pretty much even with my pace, so I used him as a carrot. Then he walked so I passed him, stopping later at a fountain and when the tempo portion ended, the guy (very nice Brit) caught up and ran next to me, saying he hoped it was ok that he’d been pacing off me. I think he was afraid I’d think he’d been stalking me, but I laughed and said, “sure!”

I gave myself a pass as far as pace because the heat was undeniable. My tempo miles averaged 8:10, and according to Glover or Daniel’s accounting for heat, that’s equal to 16 to 22 seconds faster, so actually pretty darn good! I stopped 4 times at the fountains – once before the tempo, once during and twice after, that last time I pretty much parked myself there for 30 seconds, couldn’t get enough! I admit to stopping my clock today at every fountain stop, better that than feeling rushed and not drinking enough.

I brought music with me but during the first tempo mile felt it was slowing me down so I tucked my ear buds away. I’m turning the music off or leaving it at home more often lately but I think it’s mainly because I need some new stuff. That’s the good thing about car trips…Nick has XM in his car so I write down songs I like and get them at Napster or Itunes when I get home. Got a handful to download from this weekend’s trip so I suppose it’s time to refresh the soundtrack to my running life. Later, kids.

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