Saturday, August 9, 2008

A Good Long Run

OBJECTIVE
18 mi. EZ w/last 3 mi. pickup @ 7:55/mi

ACHIEVED
16.72 mi.@ 8:49/mi. w/last 2.72 mi.@ 8:13/mi.

5:39 AM 78° 86% 0 mph

It was a good long run today. It wasn't easy but I had good company. Today was Miranda's last run with us before moving to Fort Lauderdale. Others along for the run were Stephanie, Stuart, Randy, Josh, William and me.

We went started at Memorial Park and went to Rice University for a loop around the campus. From there we went north and west until we got to Stephanie's house for a water break. There was about 4 miles left at that point.

My legs felt okay throughout the run. This was good given yesterday's 8 miler. My cardio felt good intermittently. It was warm and humid. The soft surface on the trail around Rice was helpful.

I was debating the pickup as we worked our way back to Memorial Park. The group gradually picked up with about 3 miles to go. I think we must have cut the planned route short because we should have had 2 miles left when we hit the park. But I knew it was less than that. I broke from the group at Memorial Drive. I think I pushed too hard right away instead of working up to the faster pace. I was gassed over the final half mile.

The run was a bit shorter than I scheduled and I didn't hit the 7:55/mi. pickup pace. But the heat index was pretty high so I think it was still okay.

I missed the Rich Bouchard 10K in Utah this morning. Sorry that I did ....

PRE RUN
water, oatmeal w/brown sugar & skim milk; FRS

POST RUN
2 SlimFast, water
Later, homemade berry smoothie

Friday, August 8, 2008

8 on 8/8/08

OBJECTIVE
6 - 8 mi. Easy (8:24-54/mi.)

ACHIEVED
~8.00 mi.@ ~8:56/mi.

~6:30 AM 77° 93% 0 mph

My trusty Garmin has worked so well lately .... Apparently today was time for it to pull the "Low Battery" routine on me. Very frustrating. I know it was fully charged after yesterday's run and I'm relatively certain the sequence I followed when disengaging from my desktop at home was the same as usual .... That left me with my IronMan. This wasn't too big of a problem since I was running from the YMCA for 8 miles. I generally know where the mile intervals along the way are.

I was slow to get going. My legs felt a tight but loosened up shortly after I was underway. I got a late start because I slept in until 5:40 AM. I usually don't bother with an alarm during the week figuring that's the best way to get the rest my body needs. After the past couple weeks of inconsistent morning starting times I've been waking up at different times. Prior to that I was pretty much waking up at 5 every morning.

It was humid again today. By the time I was finished, my shoes were sloshing with sweat. Jonathan has come up with the concept of "rain gutters" for runners' feet to keep the sweat from filling up their shoes. I could have used them today!

Overall I felt fine today. My cardio seems solid and with the exception of a few niggling issues my body is okay too.

I've decided not to go to Utah for tomorrow's 10K. This is a disappointment because I wanted to defend my age group title from last year. I also really wanted a race to assess my fitness. I haven't raced in a long time now. But I was going to have to go on a 9:30 PM flight and get in very late then turn around for a 7 AM race start in the morning. It just didn't make sense. I've also got some work issues that most likely will require my attention over the weekend. So I'm going to miss the race. GOOD LUCK TO THE BIGFOOT FARMS RACING TEAM TOMORROW!

As for me, I'll be heading out for a long one in the morning. Stephanie is in town and has put together a 17-mile route from Memorial Park around Rice University and back to the Park. I hope to hold up better than I did last week and add a bit of a pickup at the end.

PRE RUN
GrapeNuts w/skim milk

POST RUN
SlimFast
Later, water, multivitamin, oatmeal w/brown sugar & skim milk

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Slow 4

OBJECTIVE
4 mi. Slow (+8:54/mi.)

ACHIEVED
4.03 mi.@ 9:06/mi.

5:51 AM 74F 95% 0 mph

Got out and got a few miles this morning .... I'll call it Day 2 of getting back on track. It was quite humid.

I'm considering going to Utah for the weekend to run a 10K. The course is hilly, at altitude, and I wouldn't mind a "fitness check". Stephanie is out of town this weekend and Stacey is running with KatyFit. The usual Saturday group is fragmented at best. This seems to make it a better time for me to go. I was planning on 18 miles Saturday. I figure I can run to the race start, finish the race then go add a few more miles.

Stay tuned to see how this one plays out ....

PRE RUN
Accelerade

POST RUN
Accelerade, multivitamin, oatmeal w/flax, brown sugar, cinnamon & skim milk

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

I Suck

OBJECTIVE
who knows?

ACHIEVED
5.13 mi. @ 9:20/mi.

5:17 AM 77° 89% 4 mph

In 1976-7, I was a fifth grader at Central Elementary in St. Anthony, Idaho. During that year my occasional friend, Alan Edlefson (sp?) and I wrote a few supposedly humorous skits for some sort of school talent show. We chose what we thought were the best ones and “acted” (I use that term loosely in this instance.) them out as part of the show.

At a climatic point in one of skits I ad lib’d: “This thing sucks!” I thought nothing of it but later in the day received a fairly serious scolding from my mom (serious enough that I remember it 30+ years later!), who was present in the audience. In short, she told me that “suck” was a bad word and that I shouldn’t say it.

So with apologies to my mother I say, “I suck!”

Saturday’s run was hard. I followed that up with a lot of time in the sun over the weekend. The temperatures were +95° with high humidity – typical August days in Southeast Texas. The baseball team I was coaching ended up making a run to the championship before losing. This meant 5 games … all played during the day. I was smart enough to use sun screen but the conditions really zapped me.

Using that as an excuse, I slept in Monday. On Tuesday morning, it was Hurricane Edouard (ended up being not much more than a rain storm with some wind). Over the days my legs were achy and I still felt fatigued.

Upon waking up this morning, I gave myself permission to run at ANY pace in exchange for just getting out and putting one foot in front of the other.

I took myself up on the deal and made it out the door. I slogged through an extremely slow 5 miles. I didn’t feel particularly bad and certainly wasn’t good … just getting back to training. Today I operated under the theory that there’s no such thing as “junk miles”.

Last week I tried adopting the “rest 3 days a week” training approach. I didn’t feel like it worked for me so I’m planning to flip back to running 6 days per week. I know this isn’t what my doctor or physical therapist have recommended but I felt better running this way over the 6 weeks I followed this approach. It’s not a good time to be messing around with my training schedule.

I need focus and I need to stop sucking. There’s only 58 days until the marathon.

Postscript: The skit Alan and I performed was pretty funny. I’m probably the only person who remembers it now. The skit was in the form of a television commercial for a shaving product we called “Triple Trac” – a razor with three blades. For context, please remember that the most advanced razors at the time only had two blades. Ironically, I shaved this morning with a four-bladed razor. Not only were we funny but we were well ahead of our time!

PRE RUN
nothing

POST RUN
Accelerade, multivitamin, water, oatmeal w/flax, brown sugar, cinnamon & skim milk