With the massive wildfire in eastern North Carolina still burning away, air quality was really bad first thing Saturday morning. I decided to leave my run for later in the day and luckily the winds shifted slightly during the day which made it possible to venture outside for a steady six miles.
With two weeks to go until I start a 20-week marathon training plan for the Richmond Marathon in November, I’m still taking full advantage of being in a base building phase at the moment; it’s great just being to get outside and run with no real concern over speed, distance and time.
At 82°F the run was a sticky one, but the stiff breeze made it quite bearable. My pace hovered between 7:09 and 7:37 pace and I forced myself to hold back and keep things easy. During the last mile I could tell the smoke was starting to bother me, and was glad to get back inside after covering just over six miles.
News of the wildfire isn’t good. So far it’s burned over 1,400 acres and wiped out parts of a project to restore Atlantic white cedar trees. Thankfully the blaze has burned mostly refuge land and no significant injuries have been reported and no structures have burned. The wildfire is about 40 percent contained and firefighters are hoping for heavy rain which will help tame the blaze.
Details of Saturday’s run:
Might as well mention Sunday’s run too – a nice easy 4.5 miler to take my weekly mileage up over 40 (same as last week) and my monthly total to 81 miles. My next run (tomorrow) should see me hit 1000 miles for 2008 – not a huge amount but a nice milestone nonetheless.
This morning’s run was another easy one and the absence of smoke from the wildfire made it much more pleasant than Saturday’s six miler.
Back at the house I continued with the hundred push ups plan and did 10 minutes of core strength work. By the way, I can’t believe how successful the push up plan has been since I launched the site earlier this week – check out how many people have let me know they’re following the six week program: http://www.hundredpushups.com/challenge.html! If you want in, just send me an email and/or leave me a comment; I’ll be happy to add you to the list.
Now with all the hard work done I can sit back and enjoy the rest of Father’s Day! Have a good one….
The pushups plan is spreading like wildfire. I think everyone wants to be able to do pushups so good on ya for coming up with the idea.
Thanks Andrew! I have a few more people to add to the list. Every time I check my mail, there are a couple more requests
🙂
not sure what my deal is with running.
IM FAR better ‘built’ (sigh) to run than to pretend Im a bodybuilder.
need to JUST DO IT.
M.