Signs of Fall

Don’t get me wrong, I love fall, but fall comes way too early here in Alaska. I’ve been seeing signs of fall for a couple weeks already.

These are signs I’ve seen so far:

1. UGG boots being worn.

2. Someone wearing a santa hat–> not sure what that was all about.

3. Having to turn on the heat in our house and in my car when I drive to work in the morning. Actually, I usually have to run our heat periodically all summer, but with the record-setting warm summer we had, I didn’t have to—and boy did we save some dough on our electric bill!

4. The rains are here. August is always a rainy month and that has continued to be true this year. However, rain is still WAY better than snow!

5. People sharing fall-inspired recipes on Facebook. (Mom!)

6. Long sleeve shirts in the morning during my run.

This morning I did a 14 mile run with a 9 mile tempo run as part of it. Here’s how it broke down:

2 mile warm-up (splits – 8:13, 7:57)

3 x (2 miles at marathon race pace, 1 mile at half-marathon race pace)

Splits – (7:20, 7:23, 7:18) (7:23, 7:12, 7:06) (7:08, 7:07, 7:05)

I had some difficulty running my half-marathon race pace, but I did run faster than my marathon race pace. I liked changing the pace every 1-2 miles since it made the workout more interesting versus doing a constant tempo run for 9 miles.

3 mile cool-down (splits – 7:59, 7:35, 7:33)

I was very happy with how this run went. I am working towards 90 miles this week and so far it is going quite well. My hamstring has been bothering me a little, but I have been trying to be very diligent about icing. I often even use one of my breaks at work to ice.

I have a lot more posts coming your way including a recap on my trip to San Francisco, how I’ve continued to get faster over the past couple of years, and fish oil and glucosamine supplements.