No practice today? Yea right. . .

Today there was no organized practice for cross country, probably due to the fact that our coaches have lives too and are taking a vacation. So instead of resting today I decided to put in some mileage. Paul decided to run with me today, since there was no one else that was going to run with me. We did one green for a warm up (about .7 miles) and went through a round of stretches. Strictly after our stretches we continued on with our work out, which consisted of four greens (about 2.8 miles) and some light core exercises. The first green we headed out on felt a bit fast, something I should have taken more notice of because Paul could not go further than three greens; I ended up finishing the last green by myself. Paul and I chatted for some time as we stretched. After finishing our stretches we did a core work out that consisted of one set of crunches, push ups, and various planks (T.V. watchers, bridges, or whatever you want to call them). In addition to the 3.5 mile run, I ran an extra two miles. In the first half mile of the run there was some work being done on power lines along side the street, so I had to take a detour, thus lengthening the distance slightly and eating up a small amount of time. I felt good throughout the run, but obviously I was tired and somewhat demoralized by the previous run. In the end I pulled through with a 12:46, a 6:23 pace. Not a great time, but I didn't expect too much, especially after doing the 3.5 mile run before that. Looking forward to running more in the future, and hopefully I'll be able to run with other people besides the cross country team! It's refreshing to have new faces around! :)