Barb T.

I was quite tired this morning, but my running partner had some stomach issues, so we just walked for 2.88 miles.  It was rather nice!

Felt pretty good this morning.  Legs were still a bit stiff, but OK. 3 miles w/u 11:34, 10:57, 9:57.  Then did bridge route 4.33 miles.  AP 10:20

Did the bridge route with University Hill.  Felt pretty strong today.  One of those days where you feel, "wow, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape here...I feel good...may PR time is approaching!"  We shall see.  Went 5.97 miles in 59:52.  AP:  10:01  

Oh it's time to get up.  I don't want to get up.  I can't get back to sleep.  OK, I'll get up and go run.  Drink some water.  I'm tired and I'm going back to bed.  Ugh.  I should run.  I can't get back to sleep.  OK just get up.  

 I did get up and run.  I ran 4 miles but was tired.  11:14, 10:53, 10:10, 10:09  AP: 10:36

Was a really good run.  I really liked this route a lot.  I'm only here for about 2 more weeks and I'll be doing this one a lot.  Some good inclines and hills.  AP was 10:08.91

It was a good run this morning, though, the last 4 miles I was a bit tired.  My running partner didn't show up for a while so I ran some easy mile splits until she arrived:  10:30, 9:51, 9:41, 10:07, 10:10, 9:57, 10:40, 10:10.  then ran 3.94 miles fairly hard with an AP of 9:47, then jogged slow to cool down for about .36 miles.  I felt the temperature and humidity this morning 82 with a humidity of 62%. 

Woke up this morning with a scratchy throat.  Hopefully will pass soon.  Did 5 miles at marathon pace and I actually felt pretty good.  Legs were a bit tired, though, from yesterday's run.  Here are the splits:  9:05, 9:03, 9:18, 9:03, 9:12    AP 9:08.49

Not a good night for sleeping.  Quite hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable.  BUT, still did manage to get up and run.  Ran 3 miles w/u (sno...before my partner arrived :-) splits:  11:06, 10:53, 10:35.  Then did our bridge - university hill route (though I've decided to rename it the eternal hill) and our AP was 9:43.  It was a good run.

Oh what a beautiful morning!  We had lots of rain yesterday afternoon and the place cooled off.  It's still humid, but at least much, much cooler.  Had a nice and easy w/u 11:10, 11:01, 10:39 then we took off on our bridge route over the Niger River.  Will probably be my last run over the Niger unless another unplanned event brings us back here.  So, it was a nostalgic run.  Kept a decent pace AP 9:31.  

Today was a speed workout.  Warmed up a mile (11:31) then did 12 one mile repeats with about .15 mile walk in between each mile.  I was shooting for 30 seconds under MP per mile so target was 8:45.  It was extraordinarily humid this morning.  By the end of the workout I was literally sloshing in my shoes.  NO exaggeration.  Here are my mile splits:  9:34, 8:54, 8:42, 8:45, 8:50, 8:48, 8:48, 8:52, 8:48, 8:54, 8:59, 8:43.

Good workout but I was very tired.  Now off to the zoo!

well...I put in my work out yesterday and deleted it on my watch and then I came to the blog and it wasn't here.  So, needless to say, I ran 10 miles yesterday easy.

did hill repeats today. w/u about 1 mile.  Did 4 x 150m hill repeats, quite steep.  w/d about 2.5 miles.  Was quite tired today.

Did another 10 miles this morning.  Feeling a bit unmotivated as my running partner headed stateside last week Friday.  I don't like venturing too far out of the neighborhood in the dark so I just stick close to home and that gets boring.  Listening to the ipod does help pass the time.  Here are my splits:  10:19, 10:12, 10:07, 10:03, 9:57, 10:04, 9:59, 9:54, 9:50, 10:12

Was another tiring morning.  Woke up fatigued.  Decided to do something a little bit different.  Jogged slow for a half mile then ran around marathon pace for half a mile then after 5 of these I was just wiped and just walked for .31 miles.

slow splits:  5:43, 5:27, 5:30, 5:58, 6:11

fast splits:  4:38, 4:26, 4:15, 4:16, 4:17,

walked  9:40

Better morning than others this week.  Felt like I recuperated a little bit of energy.  Ran 9 miles nice and easy.  Tomorrow will be a VO2 max day.

Today's splits:  10:33, 10:27, 10:20, 10:10, 9:54, 10:13, 10:10, 10:04, 9:37

AP: 10:10

Well, it was one of those days. First, I do get up quite early to run since it is quite hot and humid here. My running partner is stateside, so I run very close to home as I feel safer. I run along the "Niger River road".  The road parallels the river and goes between the "old" bridge and the "new" bridge.  These 2 bridges are the only way to get across the river to the major portion of Bamako.  Usually when I run (start somewhere between 3am and 4am) I may see a total of 6 cars.  Well, this morning I lost count after 50 cars as they closed the "old" bridge, I suppose for repairs.  On one of my repeats I saw vaguely in the distance what looked like a crowd of guys.  Boy howdy did my antennas go up as a "crowd" any time equals trouble.  I was ready to turn around and put in a quick sprint back home.  But as I looked more closely and listened carefully I discovered that it was a sizable herd of cows trying to get to the other side of the river!  So, I carefully slowed down and walked off the side of the road and made sure that none of the big horned cows took notice of me.  This gave me a really good excuse to slow down for one of those VO2 max miles which turned into a marathon pace mile.

 Now, as far as my run went.  It was a sad attempt at some VO2 Max miles.  Did 2 w/u miles: 11:33 and 12:01 (did some walking in there too).  Then I was shooting to do 6, 1 mile repeats going all out.  Mile 1: 7:28 (not bad), Mile 2: started to go hard and I said FORGET IT!  Mile 2 ended up 8:25.  OK, forget the mile repeats.  Why not try some half mile repeats.  First half mile all out:  3:35 (not bad...though I do remember doing some 2:20's in High School but who's comparing).  Second half mile...FORGET IT!  Did another mile at 8:37 then one last one at 12:45.

Have no idea of what distance I did today, but I climbed up and down 3 flights of stairs at our apartment for about 3 hours today.  Our vehicle is backed and ready to go.  We travel to Conakry tomorrow!  Should arrive by Wednesday and be back on line then.

My last run, maybe forever, in Bamako.  It was good to have a day off running yesterday as today I had a lot more energy.  Temperature wasn't so bad, just so humid and you sweat a lot.  It was 79 degrees with 84% humidity.

Splits:  10:54, 10:30, 10:32, 10:24, 10:51, 10:17, 10:45, 10:20, 11:31, 10:30, 10:48, 10:26, 10:32.

AP: 10:39

Next 2 days I'll have some mental running workouts in the car as we travel.  Back to physical running on Thursday....au revoir Bamako!

made it safely to Conakry.  Very, very humid here.  We're located 10 degrees north of the equator.  Known as the wettest capital in the world.  For this  5 mile run I actually lost 3.5 pounds of water.  Need to be drinking a lot more water here.

Feeling quite tired.  Guess I'm recovering from the long road trip and it's also so very humid here.  I can really tell the difference when run.  Feeling like I'm running into a head wind when there's no wind at all.  I'm hoping to put in a long run tomorrow.  Would rather get my last long run in now rather than later.  We shall see.

WOOHOO!  I did it!  My goal today was to go the distance and I met that goal.  Wasn't sure what to expect.  I started out around 6:30am and finished 6:18 minutes later. AP was 13:02

It was quite hot and humid the last 2 hours, but I just took my time, drank a lot and kept my body fueled.  No hitting the wall, no legs cramping.  I'm encouraged.

I will now focus on some speed and marathon pace.

Monday morning.  Started running at 7:00am, 79 degrees, 94% humidity.  Finished 53 minutes and 28 seconds later and the temperature was 79 degrees with 94% humidity!

splits:  11:19, 10:23, 9:59, 10:51, 10:54    AP 10:41

Decent morning.  I've determined that there is a definite difference with running in Bamako and running in Conakry.  Conakry is much more humid and I can really feel the difference running.  Yes, I perspiring more and the air is definitely heavier and I can push harder, but don't want to!  It's just too hot!  Anyway, started out intending to do 10 miles and finished with doing 9 miles then discovered that I made a mistake on my watch and actually only did 8 miles unless you figure one could do a mile in 1 minute and 48 seconds.  So, my AP was 10:54

Well, last run for Conakry in this hot and HUMID weather.  I intended to go 12 miles, but stopped after 9 as I couldn't keep my shorts up.  They were so sopping wet from sweat that I got tired of constantly pulling them up!  Next run will be COOL!!!

 Today's AP:  10:45