The forecast on Tuesday called for rain, rain, rain, thunderstorms and more rain. When I got up in the morning, that’s exactly what it looked like, so I opted to head to the gym instead and do my scheduled 3×1000 on a treadmill. I always feel like I’m cheating a bit when I use a treadmill, but it’s better than nothing, right?

My coach told me to not go all-out, but instead to practice race pace. My repeats were:

5:21
5:12
5:14

These felt tougher than race pace should feel. I also pushed myself more than I needed to because BUTTONS! I played games with myself and increased the pace every minute or so. I think I could sustain 5:15s for a 5k race, but no more than that.

Midsummer’s Night Run is Sunday. My goal is to keep my pace between 5:35 and 5:45 and see where I’m at. That’s what I did for Around the Bay last year, and it worked for the first 20k. Then I got tired.

I’m starting to think that 6 minute kms for NYC is a reasonable goal, and would bring me in around 4:15. I’d take that.

Last night, we had softball. We lost, again. They had FIVE lefthanders on their team, so I got a lot of action in right field. I went fly out, walk, strikeout, ground-out. Then the ump after the game told me that I have a good swing (YES!) but I’m standing too close to the plate and should use a lighter bat (NO!) and need to watch the pitches more closely (obviously). We only have one game left, so I need to remember that for next season.

The rain never came, by the way.