For Whom the Dogs Bark

77F, 94%, SSW 6 mph.  Breeze was a little fresher ths morning but everything else about the same.  Ran 12.00 miles in 1:51:27, 9:17 per mile, 144 bpm, 151 max.  I let my heart rate go up early, "banked" a lot of time against the 9:20 target, just to see what would happen.  Surprisingly, I maintained better than 9:20/150 all the way through 10 miles (mile 10 was 9:17/149).  11 and 12 were 9:30 and 9:39, but kept the heart rate down.  Pretty happy with this run after going hard yesterday.

77F, 96%, SSW 3 mph.  12.00 miles in 1:50:29, 9:13 per mile, 144 bpm, 153 max.  I started out a little fast, but my heart rate leveled out and held below the 9:20/150 barrier through 10 again today.

75F, 100% and calm.  A small break on the temperature.  I did weights last night but it didn't seem to affect my running today.  12.00 miles in 1:51:38, 9:18 per mile, 141 bpm, 151 max.  I didn't start out quite as fast today, and my heart rate held below the 9:20/150 threshold almost through 12 today, 12th mile was 9:21/149.  Friday a week ago, mile 10 was 9:26/149 -- mile 10 today was 9:11/146, so a significant difference even though it was slightly warmer today.  Pretty happy with how things are progressing at the moment.

76F, 97% and calm.  Out at 4:45 a.m., but didn't feel that great.  Went to bed tired and woke up the same way.  Didn't help that my Garmin went dead before the first mile was done.  I continued to the Y (6.8 Google miles) and met Wade there for another 4.2, then we did 6 with the group.  I had planned to run home from the Y for a full 20 but I didn't think my legs could make the trip.  So I hitched a ride home with Wade -- even with towels I left a sweaty mess in his car.  For the miles we ran together, Wade and I averaged 9:31 per mile for 10.2 miles, and I don't think I was faster than that for the part I did on my own.  Next Thursday and Friday I get to run in Idaho at 6000' elevation, but won't be messing with heat and humidity.  One of the runners in our group was just out there, and he said he ran 10 miles at 8500' altitude 5 minutes faster than any of three 10-milers he timed here in Houston.  That is significant and confirms what I have always believed.  Heat/humidity is worst, altitude is bad for us flatlanders, but best is a flat, sea-level, cold marathon, only since it is pretty hard to have a cold, downhill sea-level marathon, though now that I think of it I'm going to start looking for one.

79F, 100%, WSW 4 mph.  Backing off to 10 this week, after not making 20 on Saturday.  10.00 in 1:32:18, 9:14 per mile, 141 bpm, 150 max.  Mile 10 was 9:19/148, compared to 9:11/146 on Friday.  I left the house at 4:15 a.m. because I have an 8:00 breakfast meeting.  Slept fitfully all night, had a dream that I was a spy in Russia but I had an old Blackberry with Apple logic in it, so I kept missing my drops.  Finally gave up and went running.

76F, 96% and calm. 10.00 miles in 1:32:11, 9:13/mile, 142 bpm, 150 max.  Mile 10:  9:20/149.  Ordinarily I would do speed today, but I forgot.

72F, 100%, calm and clear.  Speed day, started very early and finished before dawn.  10.00 miles in 1:18:10, 7:49 per mile, 163 bpm, 183 max.  Today was a re-do from last week's epic fail.  Goal was 3 @ 7:30, then 3 x 1000 at 7:15, jogging out the mile split, then 3 @ 7:30.  Almost made it:  9:10 wu, 7:39, 7:42, 7:32 (not so good at this point), then into the intervals without a rest:  7:16, 7:07 and 7:08 (much better and much more tired), then 7:27, 7:31 and 7:29 (181).  This is a really good workout for me, I haven't been good at turning it up at the end.

74F, 100%, calm and clear.  10.00 miles at 9:16 per mile, 142 bpm, 149 max.  Mile 10:  9:16/148.  Pretty happy with these results after yesterday's speed session.

Then caught a plane to SLC, drove to Logan where we are spending the night, then spending the day in Bear Lake Valley tomorrow.  I am with my dad and some brothers and sisters, and they shamed me into getting on the hotel treadmill.  So I finally relented, after dinner on a full stomach.  Started out at 4 mph and ended up at 9.5.  Ran exactly 7.00 miles in one hour.  Even though it was inside and there is a lot of altitude here, I think I did better than outside in Houston.  I really don't feel too bad, but I'll probably be a mess in the morning.  Possibly no running tomorrow with everything else going on, so it was OK to go hard tonight.  Marathon season is coming up fast anyway.  I'll be in Provo Saturday, trying to figure out the best way to spend my one precious day in the cool dry air.

69F, 68%, SE 7 mph in SLC.  Was planning on running in Provo this morning but the schedule didn't permit going down there, so I ran with my sister out of the hotel on West Temple.  Started on 3rd South, up to South Temple, east to the U and then to the stadium, at which point I got a call from my sister wondering where I was.  Headed back down 3rd South and met her, then we turned back around and ran almost to the zoo, then back to the hotel, just in time for breakfast.  The uphills and downhills crushed my legs, I wasn't too impressive out there.  14.21 miles in 2:23:52, 10:03 per mile, 136 bpm, 162 max, so a big differential.  My heart rate wasn't that high but my legs were a little surprised.

79F 95%, SW 7 mph.  Back in the soup, 10.00 miles in 1:31:30, 9:09 per mile, 143 bpm, 150 max.  Good overall pace for staying under 150, but I didn't stay under 9:20 for the last mile.

78F, 100%, W 2 mph.  Ran the first 5 at 8:39/mile, staying under 150 bpm except for the last one.  The goal was to get the starch out of my legs before doing quarter repeats.  Succeeded spectacularly.  10 x 400 with 400 jogging rests as follows:  7:13 (162), 7:04 (161), 7:06 (165), 6:47 (167), 6:53 (169), 6:57 (170), 6:48 (174), 7:05 (175, 7:05 (175) and 7:04 (177).  I was totally wasted at the end, for running at half marathon pace, just a little discouraging.  Doing weights last night might have had something to do with it, and 78F is a lot warmer than 72F.  Overall 10.00 miles in 1:26:27, 8:39 per mile, 152 bpm, 183 max. 

I met a client today I hadn't seen in a while -- he lost 60 pounds doing Cross-Fit.  Suddenly everybody is talking about it.  There is a guy in my neighborhood who has his whole garage lit up at 5 in the morning, with 4 or 5 friends over every day.  They are in there banging around, then every so often somebody pops out in a dead run out to the end of his street and back.  I have to look every time I run past just so I don't get run over.

77F, 96%, SSW 3 mph. 12.00 miles in 1:51:46, 9:19/mile, 142 bpm, 151 max, last mile 9:28 (150)

80F, 91%, S 5 mph, brutally hot.  I got in very late from work last night and wasn't going to run at all, or at least a shortened version.  Then I woke up right on schedule, old man style, and had nothing to do but go run -- turned out to be a good run.  My Garmin battery was dead, so I ran by feel and tried to duplicate yesterday's route.  But a loose dog guarding his cul de sac messed me up and I had guessed wrong on the makeup distance when I checked it on the computer.  According to my phone, the whole run was 104 minutes, which puts me at 8:44/mile, plus or minus 5 seconds per mile for rounding error (my phone only reads out minutes).  No heart rate reading, of course.  I took the whole thing as an excuse to run the speed I wanted, but I didn't know until I finished how fast I was going.  I thought it was a little faster than normal, but didn't really expect this much drop, so happy about that.

77F, 100%, SSW 5 mph.  Had to hurry today, Garmin out again, ran 6.60 miles at 8:47/mile plus or minus 10 seconds per mile.  No heart rate data.

80F, 98%, SW 4 mph, cloudy and trying to rain.  Pretty oppressive out there.  Wade is out of town, but I drove down to the Y anyway.  Got there at 5:10 and ran 6 before the group started at 6:15, average about 9:20.  Then the group took off, a lot of new runners.  I ran with a regular, Helmut, just following his pace.  He started out in the low 8s but we finished 9 with an 8:31 average.  For the whole run, 15.06 miles in 2:13:29, 8:52 per mile, 150 bpm, 171 max.  Fastest guy in the group ran it at a 7:50 pace, and it was the first time he had ever run that far.  He has been running 20-30 miles per week since the start of the year and has lost 80 pounds, still over 200 pounds.  I don't think I have ever seen a more dramatic example of running against body type. 

74F, 98%, WSW 3 mph and clear.  Rained most of the weekend, violent thunderstorms with lots of debris left over.  Calm this morning, though.  Today I definitely benefited from cooler temperatures, a day of rest and not running too hard on Saturday.  I will probably travel later this week, so I am trying to get in more up-front miles. 

Ran the first 10 at sub-150 heart rate:  10.00 miles at 8:56/mile, 143 bpm, 150 bpm max.  Mile 10 was  8:52 (149), best mile I have run in this training zone in a while.  On April 2 I ran this:  73F, 94%, SE 6 mph.  7.10 miles in 1:02:55, 8:52/mile, 146 bpm.  That run was in a sweet spot between getting over the flu in March and injuring my back in May, so I think it is a fair comparison. 

Then, on the theory that I still got the base-building benefit out of the first 10, but I have a marathon coming in November, I sped up the next 4.  The plan was to do 4 at 8:15, but the first one came in lower than that without a significant sacrifice to heart rate, so I did a progression run instead:  8:03 (158), 8:00 (165), 7:43 (170) and 7:38 (175), trying to kick it in on the last quarter.  I don't have a pace for the last quarter, but I think it was low 7s, not sub-7.  Overall 14.00 at 2:00:39, 8:37/mile, 149 bpm, 182 max.

73F, 88% WNW 2 mph.  My eyes got big when I saw this weather report, figured I would run like Meb this morning.  But my legs were still tired from yesterday, not an ideal day for a workout.  The plan was 7 under 150 bpm then 7 x 1000 at 7:00 pace.  The first 7 were at 9:00 per mile, 140 bpm, so looking good to that point.  Then I got a call that I had to take, following which I launched into the 1K repeats, jogging out each mile.  They didn't go so well.  Translated into mile paces:  7:29 (158), 7:27 (158), 7:02 (163), 7:17 (167), 7:14 (171), 7:15 (172), 7:31 (174).  The last repeat was all I could do, felt like I was alone out there, but it finally ended and I was done.  Overall 14.00 miles in 1:58:50, 8:29 per mile, 179 bpm max.  A lot of work to get 2 seconds per mile better than yesterday.

The call was from Australia, but it related to my travel to Taiwan this week.  There is a big taifun headed toward Taiwan, scheduled to arrive about the same time as me.  The Australian was thinking I shouldn't go, but it isn't my choice.  My client is Chinese, and the other party is Japanese.  So my client sent an e-mail to the Japanese along the lines of "gee, there seems to be a large taifun bearing down, not sure your plane can land, would you like to re-schedule?"  Whereupon the Japanese write back in 5 minutes, to the effect of "no, we are busy next week, we will see you on Friday."  I love the Japanese, used to speak Japanese, but there is definitely some intra-Asian oneupmanship going on here.  Bottom line, if the Japanese go, I have to go.  If the taifun hits I may not get out for a while, so I guess I'll take my yellow Helping Hands shirt and join a cleanup crew, not like I haven't done hurricane cleanup before, but this will be my first taifun.  Not sure what any of this has to do with running, just had to explain my possible absence in the coming days.

73F, 81% and calm.  10 miles @ 9:00 per mile prior to leaving for the airport.  Blogging days later, and I don't remember anything about this run, except that my Garmin was (and still is) broken.

10 miles on hotel treadmill at 8:50 per mile.  The typhoon in Taiwan did not materialize, meetings happened on Friday as scheduled, then left for Beijing.

10 miles on hotel TM.  I was going to run outside, as my hotel is close to the Olympic Park in Beijing, but my Garmin isn't working, not sure why.  So I stuck to the TM, actually starting to get used to it, which is sad.

Hotel TM again, 4 miles at 8:40 pace, then 6 miles at GMP, first 5 at 7:30, then sped up to 7:18 for 3/4 and 7:10 for the last quarter.  The gym here is actually pretty warm and I had an impressive, sweaty mess on and around the TM by the time I finished.  Took about a half hour to clean it up, including some sweat that flew onto the next machine over.  Overall 7:57 per mile, that is my speed workout for the week.  It is Wednesday morning here and I am heading back to Houston today, it will be good to get home.  It certainly is hurricane season, though.

78F, 67%, NNW 7 mph.  Wasn't sure what to expect out there, but the weather is changing, even down here on the Gulf Coast.  Despite the high temperature it was pretty comfortable out there.  67% humidity is very tolerable.  No Garmin again, have tried a soft re-boot, a hard re-boot and a hard-hard re-boot, dead as a doornail, even though in the cradle it says fully charged.  So I ran by feel again, did a loop twice, 5.56 miles per loop according to the computer, 11.12 miles total in 1:32:45 after netting out a 30-second water break, so 8:20 per mile.  Felt comfortable, which I was pleased about considering sitting for 20 hours on a plane yesterday.  I have to travel again next week, but going south this time so I won't be dealing with jet lag at least.  Had to stop and take some phone calls, so that was it for today, hopefully I can get in a bigger run tomorrow.

81F, 94%, SSW 9 mph to start, 84F, 86%, SSW 10 mph at end.  Got 8 hours of sleep last night, finishing off the last of the jet lag, but as a result got out the door late, 7:13.  My legs were heavy, it was as difficult to run today as it was easy yesterday.  Plus I was pretty ticked about the weather.  95 heat index at 7:00 in the morning?  Unacceptable.  The sun was beating down in the last half and I was starting to get seriously dehydrated with the solar effect on my skin, so I left off the last detour and called it a day.  According to the computer I ran 9.41 miles in 1:22:20, average pace 8:45, not too bad under the circumstances. It felt slower than that.  Garmin is still broken.