Dinner and a movie

Went out with some friends to 'Late Nite Pie' at Bagby and Elgin tonight, after going to the movies - Happy-Go-Lucky with Sally Hawkins as Poppy - at Angelika downtown. The movie was entertaining enough, but not much more memorable than the veggie pizza. Sally Hawkins is excellent as Poppy, a quirky 30-year old primary school teacher whose effervescent personality brings out the best in most people. But not everybody. Poppy can teach all of us something about what it means to be truly happy.

It has been a good running week: 39 miles total including a 'short' long run of 12 miles today (Saturday); a productive tempo run on Thursday, some mile repeats at the track and a couple of recovery runs. Left calf still a bit tight - have been working it over with the foam roller and The Stick.

I enjoyed Thursday's tempo run which included 4 consecutive miles at 'half-marathon heart rate' which I have pegged at 155. In the end this kicked out miles of 7:35, 7:52, 7:47 and 7:49. I would have liked those miles to be closer to 7:40 but there were some hills involved... Tuesday's 1600 meter repeats at Memorial High School track produced three 1600's at 7:17, 7:22 and 6:50. Next week I will step it up to 4 X 1,600 meter repeats, with a 400 meter slow jog interval.

Saturday's short long run of 12 miles was slated to be a group run with my Katy Fit 'Green' group, but I missed them due to a misunderstanding about the start time. So I had to tough it out and run the 12 on my own. Not fun but I got it done at a pretty steady clip around 9:17 average miles (except for the first and last ones). I had downloaded a couple of old Grand Funk Railroad albums so that helped to break the tedium of the long run. My heart rate was just under or around 130bpm for the entire run.