For Whom the Dogs Bark

46F, cloudy, N 10 mph.  Ran the Kingwood Half Marathon today. Woke up two hours early after not much sleep, just because that's how I do it. Took two Ibuprofen to ward off knee pain, and ate a small breakfast, no dairly or citrus. Wade and I drove out together, planned to run together but he took off because he was having an unexpectedly good day, beat me by about 1:20 and got 11th place overall. I did better than I expected as well, and had fun racing someone in the last few miles. She started catching me at mile 9.5. I knew I was a dead man, because I am not a fast finisher. But it was fun holding off the inevitable as long as possible. I talked to her afterwards. She was a nice lady and not all that young (50, as I look at the official results), though I didn't offer that particular compliment. Then I ate a piece of pizza. Then I drove home and packed the Christmas decorations. The holidays are now over.

Splits:  7:39 (152), 7:32 (164), 7:35 (167), 7:49 (167), 7:40 (169), 7:52 (170), 7:41(169), 7:37 (168), 7:47 (167), 7:58 (166), 7:57 (166), 7:43 (172), 7:40 (173), HR average 176, max 176. 7:33/mile based on a full 13.11 miles. But the split times are high because the course measured short. Wade and I aren't sure if it really is short or because it is a winding path mostly through the trees. I measured 12.85 and he measured 12.9. Usually we aren't that far off of each other, which is why I think the trees impair the measurement. But if my 12.85 is correct, I averaged 7:42 instead of 7:33. Pretty slow race, my PR at this distance would have given me 3rd overall. Official placement is 13th out of 276.

45F, N 5 mph. 10 in 1:26:33, 8:39/mile, 141 bpm, 148 max, so HR was pretty good. Legs are still not back though, which is keeping me slow. But this one was OK for the day after racing.

37F, clear, calm breeze from the north. Got out very early in order to make an early meeting at work. Intended to go long but time constrained. 10.0 in 1:24:44, 8:28/mile, HR 145 bpm, 153 max.

41F to statrt, 36F to end, wind NE 7 mph (WC 30F). Started very early, hoping to go 30, but ran out of gas. I'll try again on Saturday, hopefully. 21.01 miles in 2:58:46, 8:30/mile, 148 bpm average, 158 max.

45F, calm and cloudy. 6.3 at LLHR, then had to quit to go to work. 11.09/mile. Hard to draw a bead on this one, given the long effort yesterday. But have probably slowed down from not running these much in the last 3 months. Ran some of it with Wade.

53F, SE 3 mph, cloudy and getting ready to rain, but it didn't until I finished. First and possibly only metric marathon of this training cycle. Didn't run yesterday because of work schedule, which combined with LLHR on Wednesday left me pretty rested. I ran one warmup mile off the clock and then hit the button and started. First split was 8:04 and I thought it was going to be a disaster. Then the second one came in at 7:30 and I was generally OK after that, though I did slow down toward the end, as did my heart rate. Just not enough stamina -- not a cardiovascular limitation at this point, though that might change in Dubai if it gets warmish, which it may do; lows right now are in the low 60s there, not terrible but not great.

Splits were as follows: 8:04 (153), 7:30 (158), 7:35 (162), 7:37 (162), 7:43 (164), 7:27 (163), 7:34 (166), 7:22 (167), 7:30 (167), 7:31 (168), 7:38 (168), 7:41 (167), 7:35 (166), 7:45 (162), 7:51 (166).  Average HR was 164, max 169.  7:38/mile overall, not counting the warmup.

Came in at 1:39:46 for the half, which I think is pretty close to what I ran a week ago in the race, but hard to tell for sure because of the measurement problems in the trees out there.

Not stellar results today, but certainly not a disaster, I can work with this. I checked out my best MM in the Boston training cycle, 7:29/mile, 169 average heart rate and 177 max. It was a lot warmer that day, 66F, so not apples to apples. Definitely a little slower right now.  But a PR, while not likely, is not out of reach after factoring in today's lower heart rate and the fact that I am on a modest upswing fitness-wise.

Headed to Dubai on Monday night, there for almost 3 weeks. Marathon is on January 22. If schedule and circumstances permit I might try this run again in the first few days after I arrive.

56F, calm and clearing. It rained some more last night but the weather is clearing out now, it will be a beautiful weekend. Shakeout run, no watch, but I think I ran a lot closer to 9:00 pace than 8:30. Felt surprisingly tired after I quit, though wasn't overly stressed while running.

36F, NE 3 mph, clear and dry. Might have actually been colder than that at ground level (my weather station is about 20 feet off the ground); I saw frost on windshields just after sunrise. Ideal running weather, really, but a little too cold for my old bones. Started out relatively fast, low 8:20s, but my legs got gradually stiffer as the run progressed and it was hard to keep up the pace, started faltering in the second 10 and by the last third I was struggling just to stay at 8:40, but amped up my heart rate and managed to maintain at least that level for the run as a whole. I'm convinced I have some arthritis, not debilitating but not nothing either.

30 miles, 4:20:10, 8:40/mile, 148 bpm average (seems like I was at this heart rate for most of the run), 156 max. Average heart rate on the last mile was 153. That's it for long long runs this cycle, though I will be jumping right into Boston as soon after Dubai as is prudent.

Off to Dubai tonight, hoping to get in a few sunshine runs there. The marathon starts at 6:30 on the 22nd, so a 10:00-ish finish. Low temps running about 62F -- good news is relatively low humidity, in the 50s.

63F, 77%, SSE 6 mph. Ran a loop around my hotel in Dubai. 7.41 miles, 7:57 pace, HR 157 average, 173 max. Still jet lagged after 3 days on the ground. Planned to go 10, but when I stopped to get water I felt light-headed and called it a day. Have definitely lost a lot of ability to tolerate low-altitude heat.

61F, 82% S 5 mph. Ran a loop around a lake outside my hotel. It is about 1.5 miles, ran it 5 times, 7.67 miles @ 7:50/mile. Fastest 7:18. HR averaged 159 and maxed out at 170, so a little better than 2 days ago, but not a lot.

64F, 87%, hazy. Got out of my hotel for a final run this morning, but have no real idea how fast or how far I ran. I do know that I ran for 43 minutes. I put my HRM on backwards, sensors out, that was not good, but at least explains why I was getting no readout. Don't think I can turn it in for a refund on that basis.

Ran around the convention center complex 3 times. A loop measured all the way from 1.3 miles to almost 2, and my mile splits varied between 9:21 and 5:09. I'm going with 5:09. When I uploaded the run I got a pretty interesting route map for 3 identical loops.

Air is heavy here, feels fine walking but grabs me when I run. I ran outside 3 times in the last week, so that will have to do, but wouldn't be surprised to log a 3:50 on Friday back in Dubai. I had planned to improve my PR at this race, but it ain't happenin'. Will still be fun, though.  Bib #822, but there won't be anything happening worth tracking.

65F, 85%, WSW 7 mph to start, 70F to end. Ran the Standard Chartered Marathon in Dubai today. Though SGM one year had higher finishing temperatures, this was easily the most difficult marathon I have run temperature-wise. Not a good day for running, a little too hot, a few too little training miles coming in, a little too much time on planes. Today's results have been brewing for the last 10 days since I got here, good speed but it only lasts a little while. 3:47:06 on the website (2 seconds slower on my watch), about 8 minutes slower than the marathon embedded in a 30-mile long run I did just a few weeks ago. I'm glad I ran it, but I was lucky to finish it and to get a BQ for 2017. The course measured 0.1 long, so only slightly long after correcting for a few tangents, for which I was grateful. There were only 2,000 finishers in the marathon, but a 10K and a 4K going on as well, starting much later, apparently somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 runners out there, no one seems sure. The toilets at the beginning were located about a half mile from the start line, trailers rather than PoPs, segregated by gender. The men's had separate urinals, lots of them, but only two toilets in each of about 5 trailers, flush toilets but no plumbing, I'll stop there.

The website said to get there 90 minutes early, which me and 10 other runners did. I didn't take any outer clothing and the air is heavy enough here to make it feel cold at 65F in the dark. They let the elites go early and we started right on time at 6:30, after shivering for an hour and a half, which probably contributed to the bonk. The course is simple, a 7-mile out and back followed by a 19-mile out and back in the opposite direction, perfectly flat but too hot. Gave us a chance to see the lead pack twice, once at about 8K (their 10K, about 15 runners, 100% African) and again at about 20K (their 30K, 4 runners), which was cool.  I settled in to an 8:10/mile pace, which felt easy and sustainable. I held it readily through 15 before the wheels came off. It was a lack of glycogen, was able to hold heart rate (170) all the way through mile 21 before it started to fall -- so for about 6 miles I was running at the same heart rate and coming in 10-15 seconds slower with each split. Had stomach problems from the heat and took a 4-minute stop in the PoP at 35K; was just glad to find one, they were sprinkled out about every third water station on the course, two to a station. By some miracle I had carried my own TP, they were out. After that I never hit 8s again, and even got a 10:07 late in the race; stopped to throw up once but didn't. I did get 4th in my age group out of 35, which is OK but not excellent. A normal time of 3:34 would have gotten second, and hitting my original goal of mid-7s would have won it.

Was supposed to meet somebody after the race for a ride but we never connected. Finally found a taxi about an hour after the race ended and am recovering OK. The bag pickup was a mess at the end, 20,000+ runners crowding around a few stalls with staff screaming over the loudspeakers, threatening to shut the windows if people didn't behave. Lots of water out on the course and the spectators were nice. This is the richest marathon, $200K for first place men and women (my wife instructed me to go for the win when she found out about the prize money), the first 4 men coming in under 2:05, but it was odd. Maybe most international races are like this. They gave out whole water bottles on the course -- from the first one I drank a few swallows and tossed it. After that I poured them out on my head,which probably made the difference in finishing or not. But other amenities were scarce indeed, very little food at the end, limited staff, etc.

Probably won't run this one again even given the opportunity. Also, looks like I won't be doing Boston this year due to work conflicts. I can feel myself aging out of any possibility for times that are much faster. I am not really a 3:47 runner -- yet -- but probably no longer a 3:28 runner either. Boston 2015 was a special race that is acquiring stature with perspective. 

On hotel TM in Cairo, first run since the race, finished 10K at about the 53-minute mark. Felt pretty good overall, finished in the low 7s but wasn't running that hard for most of it. Trying not to do too much right now.

Same song, second verse, a little faster, finished just over 50 minutes, finishing in the mid-6s, which doesn't mean much on a TM.