For Whom the Dogs Bark

36F (28 WC), 51%, N 13-23 mph.  Got progressively colder during the run, after a low of 65F yesterday morning.  Couldn't get a consistent heart rate readout, so ran mostly by feel.  10.0 in 1:54:46, 11:29/mile.  Met Wade for the usual middle miles.  We both felt good this morning.  Nothing like running slow after a day off.

Followed with stretching then legs at the gym, adding 10 pounds from last week.

42F, 62%, NE 6 mph.  10.0 in 1:55:16, 11:32/mile.  Unreliable heart rate readout due to wind and cold weather.

42F, 90%, NNE 4 mph, rain.  Roads very wet, socks were soaked by the time I got out of my cul de sac.  Was supposed to meet Wade but never found him.  Hopefully he did the sensible thing and slept in.  My arthritic feet and hands don't like cold, wet weather.  But finished the run OK, all the later miles were in the mid to low 11s.  10.0 in 1:54:28, 11:27/mile.  Heart rate jumped around again because of the cold, but I think I kept the speed pretty accurate.  

Followed up with stretching and weights at the gym.  Same program as Monday.

P.M.  5 miles on the TM, 1 mile warmup, then 2 up (3%) and 1 down (4%).  Did last mile on the level, then down again for the last bit.  Trying to get ready for Boston without injuring myself.  

52F, 94% and calm to start, 44F, 89% NNW 10 mph to end.  Was underdressed, knew it immediately when I went out the door, but stuck with it.  10.0 in 1:57:05, 11:42/mile, no HR readout, just guessing at the pace, ran conservatively to make sure I stayed in the zone.  Time to get a new strap.

40F, 89%, NNW 3 mph.  Staying cold, at least for this area.  Longer the better.  Same old run, 10.0 in 1:56:52, 11:41/mile.  I was going to go down to the gym and run hills on a treadmill and just confirm that there is nothing wrong with my actual heart rate (as compared to what I think is a bogus readout on the HRM).  The HRM runs OK for a couple of miles, then jumps up to the 175-190 range.  I have a high heart rate max for my age (193), but if my heart was actually beating in that range at this speed I am in deep trouble.  Anyway, I didn't go, had a meeting with a client come up and had to get in, so missed my third lifting session this week.

38F, 95%, W 1 mph to start, 43F, 90%, W 6 mph at the end.  Ran from about 4:15 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.  Today was step 1 of my plan to run long-long and chip away at the mental barrier over 20 miles.  Hoping to do 3 more of these before Boston.  I ran 6 in my neighborhood, took a bio break and ran to Wade's house (2 more miles), then ran about 12 with Wade (interrupted by a second bio break in the woods), which was a huge help (running with Wade, not the bio break -- well, that too I guess).  Dropped Wade off just over mile 20 and gutted out the last 10 on my own.  He ran 14.5, which works fine for his HM program.  

Just like I thought, it was more of a mental barrier than anything.  I kept pace throughout -- not necessarily easy but not superhuman effort either, 4:26:26 total run time, 8:53/mile, last 4 were under the overall pace.  My heart rate monitor showed about 144 to 147 bpm through 10 then it went batty again.  I'm guessing it went up 10 bpm for each 10 miles, probably ending somewhere around 165, didn't feel any higher than that.

Water at mile 6 and mile 20, nothing else.  Pretty happy about this run, but need to see if I recover quickly.  I went through the marathon in 3:52:57, about 2 minutes under my current BQ standard, so that is one way of looking at it I guess.

53F, 95%, NNE 1 mph and clear.  Good weather, ran 10 at LLHR, 11:45/mile.  Wade joined for about 7 of it.  Finished up with stretching and weights at the gym, 3x10x125 squats.  Donkey kick machine was broken, not by me.

45F, 95% and calm.  Buried in a deal, but got 5 miles in:  12:00/mile, heart rate monitor not reading out right now.

44F, 95% and calm.  10 in 1:55;53, 11;35/mile, Wade joined for about 6.  Didn't run yesterday because of work conflicts.

Couldn't run this morning because of work, but broke away at noon for 10 on the TM at the gym.  Ran 5 flat ones, then 3% grade for miles 6, 8 and 10.  Started out about 9:00 pace, then picked it up to 8:30 or so, both flat and uphill miles at the same speed.

Then did 3x10 squats, 125 pounds.  Then went home.

46F, 93% and calm.  Got up very early, out the door at 3:55 a.m. and ran 8 at 7:59 pace.  Then drove to Wade's house at 5:30 and met up with Wade, his brother Mark and two co-workers, Derek and Nate.  Plan this morning was to run the Baytown Jailbreak Half Marathon.  I got my half marathon PR in this race 3 years ago, with a pace in the 7:05 to 7:10 range.  Nothing like that today, haven't been doing workouts yet.

We all piled in and I drove, about an hour to the start line, where we registered then made a quick PoP stop.  The race started about 5 minutes early, not sure why, but we fell in line toward the end.  Derek and Nate are young guys who don't train much, about 10:30/mile guys;  Wade's plan was to run with them.  Mark said he was going to run just under 9:00/mile, which was just about my long run pace anyway, so I decided to run with him just to get in my normal Saturday miles.

Splits were as follows:  9:13, 8:39, 8:24, 8:25, 8:29, 8:43, 8:24, 8:00, 8:09, 8:15, 8:06, 8:12, 7:46 and 7:15 for the stub.  8:21 overall average, 1:49:17 total time.  There is a mile-long bridge, the Fred Hartmann bridge, that is cleared for the race.  We run up to the top, which is the turnaround point just prior to the halfway mark.  Coming down we booked it pretty good and never really slowed up after hitting level ground again.  

Mark is the guy who has the new treadmill that goes up and down and can program different courses in it, such as Boston.  I'm trying to be nice to him, so when he cranked it up another gear at the end I let him go, wanted to make sure he medaled in case we were in third place.  Sure enough, he got second and I got third.  First place was about 5 minutes faster than us, a time that both of us can beat under better circumstances.  But I won't be fast again until I start doing workouts.  One more race in this age group in a couple of weeks (Woodlands Half).

We stayed for food (Chick Fil A) and awards (bobble head cops) and drove home.  Not a good race result necessarily, but fine under the circumstances.

Day after update: Was totally wiped out yesterday, took a mid-day nap and didn't get much done most of the day.  I thought taking a 2-hour break would be like doing a morning/night double but it wasn't, it was almost like running 21 straight.  Very glad in retrospect I ran with Mark and didn't go out hard trying to break 1:40, or I would have had almost the equivalent of 21 at GMP, which I don't want to do anymore unless it is race day  But luckily tonight I feel great and will probably be ready to resume low heart rate running in the morning.

66F, 88%, SSW 9 mph.  10.0 in 2:03:10, 12:19/mile.  HRM still not working right, but I think I was easily in the 122 range, maybe a little higher.  I really am going to order a new strap this week.

Followed up with stretching and squats at the gym:  3x10@125 lbs.  Right now trying to get a lot lower on the squat -- the low point is where the good stuff happens (and injuries).

PM:  5.0 on the TM, up and down.

After the race over the weekend, I wasted some time trying to figure out what I need to do to get ready for Heartbreak Hill.  One thing I have started, which is to run several long-long runs, such that being at the 20-mile point (at the base of Heartbreak) isn't as stressful.

But I read a course description that said Mile 21, which includes Heartbreak, is only 80' up, which comes out to a 1.5% grade.  Turns out that Heartbreak Hill itself, though, is only 0.37 miles, meaning a 4.5% grade if you assume that the rest of the mile is flat.  I have only been practicing TM at 3%, so I have to ramp that up.

But in my defense, there was a bridge in the race on Saturday called Fred Hartman Bridge, which I thought was quite steep.  I estimated 4.5%.  Turns out it has 436' of rise over a mile length to the apex, which comes out to 8.25%, and quite a bit steeper than that in the last third.  That doesn't seem entirely correct, but at least the last third was easily over a 5% grade.  On Saturday our overall pace was 8:20.  We climbed the bridge at a 9:15 to 9:30 pace and came down it at a 7:30 pace, so that confirms the steepness at least to some degree.  It was at Mile 7 of the race, not Mile 21.  But I had already run 8 miles before that at faster than race pace (7:59), so the climb on Saturday would have been the equivalent of Mile 15.  So 5% to 8% % for 1 mile at mile 15, versus 4.5% for 1/3 mile at Mile 21 -- the comparison seems fair enough, though Heartbreak of course follows three lesser hills.  Also, being short like that it isn't going to hurt overall results to take it easy going up.  Probably running downhill to get ready for Boston is going to help out almost as much as uphill, there is a lot more of it.  Just a flatlander's analysis here -- I actually don't think that any races should have hills.

35F, 81%, N 11 mph (WC 27F).  10.0 at low heart rate, 11:51/mile.

37F, 80% and calm.  10 more at low heart rate, 1:57:41, 11:46/mile.  Didn't run yesterday because of work obligations, so my plans for a high-mileage week are ruined.  I did order a HRM strap though, should be here by the weekend or early next week.  I found that I can run a while without it because I already know what speeds to run for different workouts.  But it's been long enough without it now that I don't have much of a reference left.

59F, 79%, SE 10 mph to start (4:05 a.m.) and 63F, 75%, SSE 10 mph to end.  Ran long today because we may have thunder and lightning by tomorrow morning.  Didn't want to miss this run (well, I wanted to, but you know what I mean) this week because I am running another half next weekend with Wade and I don't want to crowd these 30-milers too close to Boston.  I ran the last one 2 weeks ago, was about 1.5 minutes slower today, but actually came through the marathon at 3:52:03, close to a minute faster than the last one.  Then I bonked beginning in mile 28, last 3 miles were 9:24, 9:43 and 10:00.  Overall average was 8:56, had an 8:51 average going into the last 3.

Water at 8.25, 16.75 and 25, then the bottle was empty.  At mile 29.6 I was feeling very dehydrated and stopped at a spot where I had found water before, but it was shut down.  I sat down on a bench and felt sorry for myself for a minute, then decided it was pretty stupid to stop with 0.4 miles to go, dehydrated or not.  So I slogged it in.  Really amazing what happens when those little factory things in your legs shut down.  Also interesting, I went to the grocery store immediately after the run and thought I would be in a post-marathon shuffle mode, but I was walking almost normally.  So it wasn't my legs, which feel prety good, just didn't have the conditioning to finish at a constant pace.  Most likely it is the 20+ degree temperature difference, I don't think I'm less conditioned than 2 weeks ago.  59F up to 63F is officially warm enough to make a difference after long miles.

Two more of these.  I hope they work, they are certainly mentally grueling, which is the point of doing them -- and today physically as well.

66F, 88%, SSW 12 mph, gusting to 19.  5.0 in 59:17, 11:52/mile.  Started out badly, but felt OK after a couple of miles.

43F, 86%, NNE 12 mph (WC 35F).  LLHR again:  10.0 in 2:00:22, 12:02/mile.  I should be getting my new heart rate strap in the mail this week so I can actually tell how fast I should be running these.  Planned to do one more week of only low heart rate stuff, but I'm going to pull the plug and start workouts this week, 5 weeks before taper instead of 4.  I have a race Saturday anyway, so the timing is good.

33F, 89%, N 9 mph (WC 26F).  Thought way too long about whether to wear pants this morning, decided to stay with shorts and that turned out fine.  Wasn't cold after the first mile.  Started out in the mid-8s and finished 10 in 1:19:28, 7:57 overall average.  Mile 9 was fastest at 7:45, then really poured it on the last mile and got 7:52, a good sign that I was fading.  But that's why we do workouts.  I don't think this one was fast enough to qualify as a tempo but it felt hard.  Wondering if I can do 7:30s in the half this weekend.  It's going to be warm, so probably not, but I can still dream about the good old days, back when I was 57.

38F, 85%, NE 10 mph, drizzling.  I didn't run Wednesday through Friday of this week because of a deal that was closing at work, some days bedtime was as late as 4:00 a.m.  So I got a forced taper even though I intended to train through this race.  I picked up Wade at 5:00 and we drove out to The Woodlands to run the half marathon.  Smooth is here running the marathon I think, but I couldn't find her before the race and we had to leave immediately afterward as Wade is driving to Wyoming today.  I'll have to figure out my placement a little later.

I PR-ed in this race exactly 3 years ago.  Knew that wasn't in the cards today, as I have not been doing any workouts yet in this training cycle, other than one brisk run on Tuesday.  Even if I had been, it might not be in the cards, just getting a little too old to run low 7s for this distance (or any other).  Wade has been running well and this was a target race for him.  He was hoping for a PR and missed it by less than 20 seconds, but adjusting for course length he actually ran faster than on his PR day. His plan was to go out slow then settle into goal pace by mile 3. My plan was to stick with him as long as I could.  Both plans worked well.  We ran the first mile in 7:52 and the second in 7:32, then down into the teens and twenties after that.  I pulled up even with Wade after mile 4 and remarked that we had already caught the 7:26 guy.  He was feeling good and I wasn't doing too badly, the pace felt somewhat sustainable.  After that he got ahead of me and I never caught up.  I figured if I was to catch him it would be with a push at mile 10, and only then if he was fading.  Then at about mile 8.5 he caught his foot in a pavement crack and went down hard.  I was 20 seconds behind at the time and saw it all.  He bounced right back up and kept running faster than before; very impressive and I never caught him, he never faded.  Finished about 20 seconds behind him.

My own race went well until miles 12 and 13, where I recorded a 7:42 and a 7:33.  Other than that almost everything was in the twenties and teens and my overall pace was 7:28/mile, though the official pace will be slower than that because they only credit me with 13.11 miles (don't get me started).  Got my new HRM strap in the mail this week and wore it this morning for the first time.  I think it is recording accurately, but won't know for sure until working out with it a few times.

Mile by mile splits are:  7:52, 7:32, 7:20 (172), 7:16 (174), 7:32 (175), 7:14 (176), 7:27 (174), 7:19 (174), 7:27 (174), 7:31 (174), 7:30 (173), 7:41 (173), 7:33 (174) and 7:03 (174) for the stub.

So even though the heart rate was high it felt sustainable.  I lost a little bit of concentration in miles 10-12, but otherwise kept a good steady effort.  Part of my plan for March is to run 3 metric marathons, the first at 8:00, then 7:45 and finally7:30, on the theory that if I can hit 7:30 for 16 then I can hit sub-8:00 for 26, which would be a PR.  Based on this morning's results that might be too slow, but it's hazardous to extrapolate race results onto 5 a.m. solo workouts.