Okay, I am a wimp, I ran on the treadmill on a nice July day.

I won’t say it was that miserable or nasty, but the 90* plus temps, high humidity levels and bright sunshine were outside my personal safety limits for running outside.

Absolutely nothing to do with running, but Elliott has found a nice place to nap/sleep until the countertops arrive on Tuesday morning.

Getting back to running, let’s be real Harold, it was miserable and nasty outside and I won’t run in that stuff at this point in my life.

There was a 5K race over in Belgrade this morning that I was seriously considering going to, but when I walked Bennie outside at 7:00 AM and the humidity was already nasty and the temps in the mid 70s, so that thought left my brain as a crappy idea really quickly. I will pick something when the weather plays more to my strengths.

Extremes of heat or cold are things that I avoid running in when I can. Yes, it is a concession to getting to be an old fart, but better safe than sorry.

So I headed off to Planet Fitness and got on the treadmill after a very quick Bennie walk.

Today is my normally scheduled longer run, but since I had done that on Thursday, I wasn’t going to do too long. So I decided that wanted to run a 10K at an easy to harder pace, in other words a progression kind of run and maybe some strides the last mile. You know a run that wasn’t crazy, but still have parts that are a little faster than I would normally run.

The advantages of running on the treadmill today is that I can actually run versus the slog that I would be doing outside, get a few more miles on the legs and not feel like I am going to die during the run.

I started out at 6.7 mph (around a 9:00 pace) the first mile and increased the speed every mile or so until the last mile when I increased it more often.

When I got under an 8:30 pace, the left leg complained just a bit, nothing serious but enough that I decided against doing any strides. Then when I got up to sub 8:00s my stride changed slightly (that seems to be where I start running more efficiently) and it was just enough that my leg stopped bothering at all. I maintained that speed for a quarter-mile and then for the last .2 I picked it up to where I want to be my race pace.

It felt pretty good and I didn’t have any issues maintaining that pace until the end of the run. Actually it felt really good.

While I was there, I got to talk with the runner who had asked me for some help with getting faster earlier this year. He had trained for a 4th of July 5K, with the express purpose of beating another runner that he had never beaten before and run a personal best.

He did both and ran a great time of 22:18, just nipping his 14 year old son as well. He thanked me and told me that he really wanted to run a race with me. In other words he wants to kick my arse too. I have a feeling that he will to, since I haven’t run that kind of time in a while. We will see. 🙂

I guess I have some work todo.

Also while the Beacon v1 are doing okay, the tread is pretty much gone and I have a feeling that most of the bounce in the sole is gone at almost 350 miles. They feel a little dead, but are still working better than anything else in the rotation as daily trainers.

However, even though the Beacon v2 are for my birthday.

I am pretty sure that I will put another pair of shoes into the box and start running in the v2s sooner than later. Hate to do it actually, but at this point in my running injury recovery, I want to give myself any benefit that I can and new shoes compared to old ones might make enough of a difference to keep me running healthy. There were reasons that I relegated the Beacon v1 to lawn shoes and while they are doing okay, they could be better.

The heat will be with us a little bit longer, but I have hit my mileage goal for the week, so I am not under any kind of pressure to do too much tomorrow – always a good thing. I will probably get out and do 3-4 very easy miles.