For Whom the Dogs Bark

60F, 91%, NW 6 mph.  The rain from Saturday passed through and left cool air behind it.  So on a whim I thought I would take another shot at 20 at 7:45.  Failed again, but not by as much.  I was fine through about 12, but then I couldn't hold the pace any longer so I quit rather than stumble in the last 5.  I mapped out a course that was a little over 2.5 miles.  By the Garmin (which was showing each loop at a little less than 2.5) I had a 7:43 pace, by Google Earth I had 7:35, so 8 seconds difference -- this course is a little straighter, so the discrepancy was not as bad as the 14 seconds from last Friday, but it is still significant.  Uncorrected splits/HR as follows:  7:44 (159), 7:40 (162), 7:40 (164), 7:23 (167), 7:40 (168), 7:37 (169), 7:42 (168), 7:48 (168), 7:37 (169), 7:49 (168), 7:43 (170), 7:49 (169), 7:55 (169), 7:40 (170) and 7:46 (167).  Cooler air made a big difference, but not quite enough.  Probably could have averaged 7:45 for the 20, especially corrected to actual distance, but the point is to hold pace throughout.  I'll try again.

63F, 81% and calm.  Thought I would run a quick 6 and then go do the track workout with my running group.  Ripped off the first mile at 10:18 and quickly changed plans.  Legs were fatigued from yesterday, which is understandable.  Speed work today would have certainly resulted in an injury.  Ran about 12 at about 9:10 pace, and it felt fast.  Heart rate average was 136 and it never broke 146, so at least my body knew it was slow.

57F, 100% and calm.  Probably the best weather in a year.  Got a late start due to some work complications.  Ran 3 medium then 4 fast:  8:35, 8:12 (143), 8:05 (151), 7:24 (165), 7:07 (173), 7:16 (176) and 7:10 (180).  I need to run more miles at GMP, heart rate is still too high for this speed to be anything better than a 10K.

61F, 100% and calm.  Nice again today.  Supposed to be 65F tomorrow morning, I was going to do my long run tomorrow but I might wait until Saturday, forecast 55F.  I am signed up for a 5K on Saturday, but the hard long run is more important, so I dunno.  But in any event I ran 10 slow today, trying to get rested.  1:27:51, 8:47 per mile (8:58 on my lame Garmin, it was the curvy route.), 140 bpm.

65F, 100% and calm.  10.0 miles in 1:26:34, 8:39/mile, 141 bpm.  Thought of going long today but decided to wait until tomorrow in hopes it would cool down.

64F, 100%, NW 3 mph.  I skipped a 5K to launch once more at the 7:45/20-mile barrier, didn't make it over the top.  Weather wasn't quite cool enough and I didn't have enough endurance.  Haven't run enough miles this year.  Warmed up for 0.4 then ran 15.0 as follows:  7:40 (151), 7:43 (156), 7:35 (158), 7:43 (158), 7:37 (158), 7:50 (161), 7:49 (162), 7:35 (162), 8:02 (162), 7:39 (165), 7:38 (167), 7:38 (167), 7:50 (168), 7:37 (169) and 7:52 (169).  Overall 1:55:49, 7:43/mile, 161 bpm.  I know I am done when I try to speed up and slow down instead, that is a totally reliable metric.  Once my heart rate approaches 170 I can't go much further, not sure how I did a 169 average for SGM exactly a year ago.  Last long fast run will be in two weeks.

51F, 89%, N 6 mph.  The goal this week and next is to run as many marathon-pace miles as possible, or even at tempo pace, though "marathon pace" seems remarkably similar to "tempo" pace.  Ran 5 at 8:30 then 5 at 7:20 overall:  7:35, 7:07, 7:11, 7:21 and 7:13, max 175 bpm.

54F, 87%, E 3 mph.  Last cool morning for a while.  I got up at 4:30 and puttered around because I decided to join the group for a track workout.  Arrived at the track right on time at 5:30 -- they were just finishing up their 4th Yasso.  So fail again, really having a hard time getting this track workout right.  I ran a lap warmup then jumped right in, ran them in 3:28, 3:10, 3:12, 3:12, 3:10, 3:06, two minutes rest in between.  The first one felt very uncomfortable and I finished last, but it was fine after that.  I finished third (out of 8) on all of the others -- a couple of gumbies up front were running low 3s and high 2s.  It felt great to be on a quarter-mile track -- first time since high school, believe it or not.

So I showed up wearing my heart rate monitor but left my Garmin at the house.  How dumb is that?  My heart rate results must be to Pluto by now (that is, if Pluto were really a planet).  Maybe at least my signal screwed up somebody else's machine.

Speaking of machines, I called Garmin and they are going to fix my Forerunner 305.  I actually have two broken ones, so they gave me the faithful customer discount, $50 apiece.  How cool is that?  Can't believe I didn't throw away the watches.  So instead of spending $200 on a 210X that I don't like, I am spending $100 and getting two new watches.  (Thanks for the tip, Preston!)  Once these two machines break I will retire, unless my Jingas give out first. 

67F, 100%, NE 5 mph.  Same run as Monday, but 16 degrees hotter, tired legs, very different result.  Overall 10 miles in 1:19:38 (1 minute slower than Monday), 7:58/mile, 156 bpm (Monday was 153 bpm).  First 5 at regular pace, 9:06 (137), 8:47 (144), 8:39 (146), 8:33 (147) and 8:34 (146).  Then tried to hit low 7s but didn't make it:  7:44 (160), 7:31 (166), 7:37 (170), 7:36 (176) and 7:30 (179), max 181 bpm.  I should run at this heart rate more often, but I'm a little bit afraid of it.  Anyway, those numbers show an overall raw time of 8:44 for the slow miles and 7:36 for the fast miles.  But the Garmin 210 measured the course at 9.74 miles, so correcting for actual distance gives me 13 seconds per mile better, 8:31/7:23, still slower than Monday but not too bad, and my heart rate was higher today.  Interesting how much fatigue was left in my legs from yesterday.  They didn't feel any more tired and turnover seemed about the same, but the stride length actually felt shorter.  I think it is good to run fast miles on tired legs, but it feels funny, or at least unfamiliar.

I have a 10-mile race on Saturday.  I was hoping to run it at 7 flat, but it will be at least as warm as this morning and I don't think I will get close to that.  Today's speed felt pretty much maxed out, would have been lucky to hold it for 10, and I am not going to taper for Saturday.

70F, 97% and calm.  Almost didn't run the fast miles today, I've been reading too much commentary about resting, and the temperature is back up again.  But there will be time to rest later.  I asked myself if it would do any harm and the answer was no, so I took off at 5 miles on schedule, ran them at 7:25.  The sober truth is that this is not MP, which is irritating.  However, even though I didn't hold a steady pace I did hold pace throughout, and after rolling and stretching I feel OK so far.  I will run slow tomorrow, then run a 10-mile race on Saturday in the heat.  I think February was the last time I raced under 70F (just looked it up, it was March 3).

70F, 100% and calm.  Ran 10 for Texas this morning, a big fall kickoff race held every year in the Woodlands.  They cut the entries at 2500, so it isn't huge but it attracts some of the faster runners in the area, including in my age group.  I had so much trouble hitting GMP this week that I wasn't sure what to expect, especially with the heat.  I went back and checked, and except for Thursday (also 70F) this was the warmest morning of the month.  We are cooling off tomorrow and I don't expect it to get back up this high, so it was a good test of my summer slogging.  I figured even if I couldn't run fast I could still place well, and I decided not to run yesterday because I had been hitting it hard every day and my legs needed rest anyway, so a good excuse for a mini-taper. 

Wade is out of town, but his brother and sister-in-law came to my house with a friend, and Linda came also, making 5 of us.  We left my house at 6:00 (I woke up at 3:45 like a kid at Christmas, pretty irritating), arriving about 45 minutes before the race at 7:30, by which time it had hit 70F.  We stood in the PoP line, not because we needed to but because they are lighted and they have soap, running wash-basin water and flowers.  Thoroughly sanitized at the start line, the race started right on time.  Some high school choir sang the national anthem, then almost got run over when the horn sounded on the last note.  (I didn't feel bad for them, they chickened out and didn't go for the last high C, no sense of adventure in that group.)  I eased in with the 7-8 minute group and met some runners from my Y group, one of them has a 3:17 marathon and the other a 3:30.  I started out easy and my Y group friends took off ran the first mile in 6:40.  In the first two miles my legs felt strong (glycogen re-charge after taking a day off) and the pace felt easy, 7:06 (167) and 6:57 (176).  I felt sky-high and somewhat emotional, even though I knew it would be a suffer-fest, was just really grateful to be racing hard today.  My heart rate was very high, but  I decided to go with it and see what happened. 

After two miles I passed all my Y buddies and never saw them again.  Also found The Old Man in the Short Shorts and passed him at mile 3, did not want to see him again, apparently he has only one pair, possibly he has been wearing them continuously since last time. 

The rest of the race went as follows:  7:06 (176), 7:16 (177), 7:11 (179), 6:59 (182) (my typical mile 6 respite, I knew it wouldn't last), 7:10 (183), 7:19 (182), 7:15 (182) and 7:24 (184), maxHR 186.  I faded in the heat, but not disastrously.  Final time was 1:11:58, 7:10 per mile according to my Garmin, probably more like 7:12 per mile.  I ran behind a group most of the way until they faded, only to get overtaken on the last quarter by a different but similar-sized group. When I left the scene the computer had me at 2nd in my age group, 45th male, but there were a lot of runners whose times weren't reading, including a 55-year old whose Garmin showed 18 seconds faster than me (I never saw him out there, kind of strange). 

So I don't know what my final placement will be, but not important.  I confirmed to myself that I am still in good shape, that tapers work, and that I can sustain a pretty high heart rate, at least in the heat.  Some extra confidence as I finish the training cycle for the Richmond Marathon in 4 weeks.

67F, 80%, N 5 mph.  OK, so here's the story.  I've been thinking a lot about the last 10K in the marathon, and I'm not convinced it has to be terrible.  I had one race where it wasn't, Richmond 2011, and a couple of others where it wasn't bad, including St. George 2012.  I attribute that to running a lot of miles, for me at least.  But this training cycle, for various reasons, injury and travel mostly, I haven't done many 20-milers, at least in one continuous run.  And I haven't run a marathon in a year, which is starting to look like a bad combination.  So I thought if I could get in a couple of 20+ runs, not counting the one more long hard run I have to do, I would be better prepared. 

So out the door at 4:30, back in at 8:05.  24 miles in 3:34:36, 8:56/mile, 148 bpm (167 bpm last split).  I started out in the low 9 range, ballooned to 9:30+ in miles 8 - 15, then found that my legs felt better when I sped up.  They didn't feel better when I finished, though, which I am looking at optimistically as a sign that I needed the workout.  Better than thinking I ruined my upcoming marathon.  By noon I could move around unassisted, no problem.  The endorphins lasted all day.

59F, 100%, N 1 mph.  Met the group for a track workout, 6 x 1200.  I got there late because I had to answer some e-mails from Asia that came in overnight, and they had already done one repeat.  Wade got there early and had told them about yesterday's 24 after racing 10 on Saturday, so I was the uncomfortable topic of conversation when I walked up.  No problem, maybe next time they'll run it with me.

Didn't take my watch and ran with Wade this time; according to the times being called out we were mostly in the 7:20 pace range; but the last one, which I ran alone, was 4:57 (6:36) pace.  So I'm calling it 5K pace, though that is a stretch.  Legs were tired of course, but it wasn't too bad.  Later today after the endorphins wear off will tell the true tale -- until then I'll think I'm an athlete.  Cooled down for 1.5 miles.

62F, 100% and calm.  Back to my normal workout today, 5 slow and 5 fast, trying to teach my legs to run GMP.  They are not very teachable.  Ran the first 5 in 43:04, 8:36 pace, heart rate 145 or below.  Next 5 in 37:49, 7:34 pace, heart rate readouts 158, 162, 165, 169 and 174, max 175.  I think the heavy work this week is catching up with me.  Overall 10 miles in 1:20:53, 8:05 per mile.  We have low temps the next two days then back up to mid-60s on Saturday.  I'm thinking I might do a long run on Friday instead of Saturday, but it depends on what work allows.

52F, 100% and calm.  I saw ideal weather coming this morning and took yesterday off to rest up.  Pretty much a perfect morning for another assault on 20 at 7:30, but alas another fail.  15 at 7:44, ballooning into the 8s by the time I finished.  I could have run a little more but a nagging pulled muscle just above my left knee at the base of the hamstring started to talk to me so I called it a day, didn't want to try and run fast with it.  My heart rate monitor went out during the run so I really have no data other than I know I was getting dramatically slower the last couple of miles.  It is what it is, a year ago I could have run this in my sleep.  It is possible my legs have some fatigue from racing a medium distance on Saturday and from running hard early in the week, and maybe that will be worth a few seconds per mile, but I am not going to run this marathon at a 7:30 pace.  How much slower I don't know, you never know what race morning will bring.  So I'm now going into a taper with lesser expectations, I'll just make the best of it and reassess after the race.

In St. Louis this week, very warm here and no time to run, working on a deal that is slowly deteriorating, so the hours are long.  Got this one session in on the hotel treadmill.  Gradual increase in speed to 8 mph (7:30 pace), but I don't trust the treadmill.  The 7:30 pace felt more like a 5K pace. 

59F, 90%, N 10-18 mph.  Back in town last night.  Went out this morning for 10, so much for the well-designed taper.  I ran 6 easy and 4 hard.  First run with my new Garmin 305 (of which I now own two) and it worked much better.  But I forgot to set the autolap button, so it showed the whole run as one lap, ergo no splits.  I estimated my first 4 miles at about 8:50 based on my cumulative time after two miles and the feel of the speed.  Then formulating and solving my own algebra problem, I concluded that the fast ones were only 7:45.  I need a new equation.

51F, 80%, N 8 mph.  Not much colder than yesterday, but for some reason it felt really cold today.  There is a wimp component to that for sure, but combining high moisture with heavy sea-level air is a totally different type of cold than thin mountain air.  My fingers were popsicles by the time I finished.  The group at the Y was running 13, so I tried to get 10 before they started.  I got 8.4 because I started a little bit late and because I had to make an unscheduled stop.  Then joined Wade and the rest of them for a very long 13.  Feeling spun out from the week of traveling, this run never felt good. 21.35 miles in 3:13:30, 9:04 per mile.  My heart rate monitor isn't working, looks like I'm going to have to buy a new one.  It was showing my heart rate between 188 and 214 for the entire run.  I really need it for Richmond.  It's bad enough that I can't tolerate EFS in my stomach, all I need is to run too hard and bonk.  On the other hand, I haven't been running with an accurate Garmin and an accurate heart rate monitor for about a month, very difficult to guage what I can do without pushing myself over the edge.  The marathon is such a long race that you can't go by how you feel in the early miles, in my opinion.

Some worry that it isn't smart to run this far just two weeks out, but I have been doing it enough, and miles were low enough this week, that I think I'll be OK.  I hope to do quite a few miles next week, but easy with short bursts, then really back off the last week.

38F, 99%, NNE 1 mph, clear and cold.  Wore a beanie today, only two weeks after a 70F+ sweat-fest.  Typical late-season weather patterns for Houston, but at least we don't have a hurricane.  I'm going to run at a fairly hard level this week, but not crazy.  It is only 2 weeks out, but I got very little done last week and I have been wanting to test a theory anyway -- go easy a ways out from the race date, then accelerate into the race, albeit taking a few easy days right before it.  The reason is that seems to be how I perform best during any given training cycle.  Maybe it is a bunch of bunk, but if I'm wrong I have two more marathons in the next 6 months to screw it up by some other method.

My legs felt good this morning despite having difficulties running 21+ on Saturday, they had a little bit of spring in them.  Splits were 9:02, 8:31, 8:39, 8:24, 8:38, 8:18 then the GMP miles at 7:25, 7:23, 7:25 and 7:22.  Kind of hard but I hit the splits pretty readily, it was easier than running 7:45s last week.

I'm going to go ahead and do the speed workout with the group tomorrow, then do today's run again on Wednesday.

39F, 100% and calm.  Went to the track for a workout, late as usual.  They were running ladders and were on their first quarter when I got there, so I warmed up one lap and ran 800 (3:37), 1200 (5:14), 1600 (6:42), 1200 (5:05), 800 (3:15) and 400 (1:29).  I think that may be the first time I have broken 90 on a quarter -- kind of sad, used to do that for a warmup in high school, and I wasn't even fast.  But I was the fastest one on the track this morning, which is even sadder I guess.

50F, 100% and calm.  Has to be the best running weather ever this week.  Set my alarm for 5:30 and woke up right on time at 4:15, out the door at 4:50 for 10 and some change.  Legs felt pretty lively after running only 4 yesterday.  6 slow and 4 fast:  8:42, 8:15, 8:03, 7:58, 8:01, 7:52, then 7:20, 7:18, 7:27 and 7:25, then 7:47 for the stub.  Total 1:18:53, 7:50 per mile average.  Last two were harder than they should have been, definitely not MP, at least this morning.  HRM is on order, I'll have it before Richmond.  Nothing else fast this week, but I think I'll stick with 10 per day, per my original plan, since my legs seem to be doing OK.