For Whom the Dogs Bark

75F, 96% and calm.  Getting very warm, not running much this week because I have a conference room full of people at work to babysit.  Not missing running in the mid-summer temperatures though.  Today was 10.13 miles in 1:31:01, 8:59/mile. 147 bpm average, 157 max.  Met Wade for about half of the run.  He is headed back to Wyoming to shut down for the winter then back here for 10 for Texas on October 11.

60F, 78%, NNE 7 mph (wind chill 56F).  Not that much warmer than St. George -- very nice this morning, slept in late, have been doing almost no running this week because of a deal at work that went bad.  Flying to Asia on Sunday night so won't get much done next week either.  Then I will try to run a 10-mile race on Saturday. This is why I am not a good runner.

Today was a 10-mile progression run:  9:14 (134), 8:29 (143), 7:50 (158), 7:40 (160), 7:36 (163) 7:24 (165), 7:30 (168), 7:19 (171), 7:26 (173) and 7:17 (177).  Average 159 bpm, max 180.  Overall 10.00 miles in 1:17:43, 7:46/mile.  Cooled down one mile with the household pet unit.

Mile 6 was a good one, in a zone and it just kind of happened without a lot of effort.  I could almost see myself doing a marathon at that pace if I was in better shape, but it will probably never happen.  Just 3 miles later (mile 9) my heart rate was up 8 bpm at the same pace.  

Good luck to all the SGM runners this morning.

On TM in hotel in Taipei.  10K progressive run right off the plane, started out at 10K/hour, finished up at 15K/hour, which translates to 9:39/mile down to 6:26/mile.

Still in Taipei, managed to get in another TM session just before leaving for the airport to return home.  Same run as Tuesday's, a little faster.

74F, 95%, slight breeze.  Race day arrived hot, windy and humid.  Very close to the same conditions as last year, but no rain boiling off the pavement.  By Monday morning it is going to be 52F according to one forecast.  Basically we missed acceptable weather by one day.

Wade and I drove out together, we showed up wearing the same hat, which was awkward.  He threw out his race plans and decided to do a progression run, as he has been running in Wyoming all summer and didn't want to deal with heat stroke.  I decided to deal with heat stroke, thinking I would have an advantage over the other guys running on creaky legs in my age group.  But I did make one concession to the running gods, not to try for anything faster than 7:30/mile overall average.  I started out right on pace, 7:27 and held it through 3 miles.  Mile 4 was 7:40 and I couldn't get it back after that.  Mile 9 was 7:37, which I was happy about.  Turned on the afterburners, sprinted in to the finish and got 7:51 on the last mile.  Overall 7:37/mile.  Official pace was 7:33/mile but the course was a tenth short, kind of lame for a certified course for a big race.  I ran most of the tangents but didn't catch them all.  Over 3,000 runners, got 7th in my age group.  Average heart rate 179, max 188.  Didn't know I could hold that high of a heart rate for 10 miles.

Pretty happy with  results today under these conditions.  Jet lag probably didn't help things any.  Have been short on sleep all week, surviving mostly on 2-hour naps on planes or in hotels.  Slept well last night though.  I complained to Wade about all the fast guys in my age group -- he said that guys our age don't have anything else to do so it's no wonder.  My age group was apparently faster than his (50-54), as he got 10th with a per-mile pace that was 23 seconds slower than mine.

77F, 87% (73 DP), S 8 mph.  Woke up this morning thinking the temps would be in the low 50s and got a nasty surprise.  But wasn't really that bad, have been doing it all summer.  Wade ran a few with me, truly misery loves company.  Was going to go 14 but legs were wooden from racing on Saturday so decided to call it a day.  11.33 in 1:36:48, 8:33/mile, 156 bpm, 170 max.  Got in just before the storm cells moved in.

53F, 83%, calm and clear.  Good weather finally here.  Didn't run yesterday because of work deadlines in the morning.  I have about decided to switch to the marathon at Richmond on November 15, one month from today, so time to start doing some marathon-paced runs.  Ran a "metric marathon" this morning after a very short warmup.  16.0 miles in 2:07:34, 7:58/mile, average heart rate 161, max 173.  Last two were 7:44 and 7:49.  Held the heart rate in the 160-165 range through 12 then it spiralled away from me and I had a hard time making my splits after that.  Need to get that number up to 15, 12 isn't quite close enough.  But I'll try to get this run in twice more and I think my leg strength will improve -- nothing wrong aerobically at the moment.  

60F, 83%, WSW 3 mph and clear.  Legs were stale this morning after yesterday.  Was going to do a LLHR run, haven't done one in a while, but my Garmin went dark so I reverted to a known 6-mile route and did it twice at long-run effort.  The second time through I timed it at 52 minutes on my phone, which works out to 8:40/mile.  First half might have been a little slower.  I was able to turn on my Garmin for a few seconds at a time to pull off heart rates.  At the end of the first half I had 141 and 152 at the end.

63F, 100%, clear and calm. Didn't run yesterday because of an early work meeting.  If I don't do it in the morning, I don't do it.  But didn't mind the day off because my old back injury seems to have returned.  I am smarter about it, though, immediately went into an intense stretching regime and took ibuprofen -- a lot of the pain comes from swelling, not from actual injury.  Took 400 mg last night and 200 mg this morning at 4:30.  Out the door at 5:00, prepared to turn back if my back was off.  But there wasn't even a twinge, so I knew it was back to plan A, which was to run 24.  My marathon is only 4 weeks out, so time to get in some good long runs.

I thought I could do 9s OK, even though I have had trouble with that pace all summer on long runs.  It is a little cooler now and I am a little better conditioned.  The first mile came in at 9:18, the second at 8:42 and I knew I would probably do better than 9s.  Heart rate stayed low, I was not over 150 bpm until mile 18.  This run was textbook long and slow.  Finished off a little faster, last mile was 8:25, 161 bpm.  Average 146 bpm, max 163, never worked very hard.  Altogether 24.0 miles in 3:30:22, 8:46/mile.  Happy that I can run this well in relatively warm conditions.  I took one drink at 8 miles and nothing the rest of the way, I guess that makes me a desert tortoise.

Got back to the house and cracked two eggs for breakfast, both doubles.

My son the bodybuilder, who eats more eggs than Gaston, is insanely jealous.  He has only gotten one double in his lifetime.  It's one of those days.

62F, 86%, ENE 3 mph.  Original plan this morning was to do 10 at 7:30, then decided that wasn't too smart, have a whole week of running ahead of me, and Wade was coming out to meet me.  I had told him I was doing 8s, momentarily forgetting about the 7:30 thing.  So I ran the first one at 8:54, then 7:58 and ran a couple more in the 7:30 to 7:45 range before meeting Wade.  We ran mile 6 at 7:27 then intentionally slowed down to the 7:50 to 8:00 range.  Turns out Wade had to slow down to my pace, he was really feeling it this morning.  He was running a heart rate that was 20 bpm lower than mine.  His altitude running in Wyoming all summer long has made a big difference.  So he headed home at about my mile 10.5, running his last 2 at 7:13 and 7:07, maxing out at 156 on his heart rate, and beating his 10 for Texas pace by 10 seconds per mile.  I was happy with my own run, but it didn't compare to his.  I got 12:00 in 1:34:32, average pace of 7:53/mile, 156 bpm, 166 max.  Kept it in the high 150s/low 160s for almost all of the run, which based on experience is sustainable for the full marathon distance.  Good Monday run, very much enjoying these civilized temperatures.

64F, 90%, NE 3 mph.  Notably warmer than last Wednesday when I did this run.  Just like last week, this morning was after a day off due to an excessive work schedule.  Got to bed at midnight last night, so a short night on top of everything else.

After a short wu, I ran 16 in 2:07:32, essentially the same as last week.  Average heart rate 159, max 170.  I was kind of agitated during the run about how difficult it was starting to get, hit 8:07, 8:11 and 8:07 around the 2/3 point even though I was pressing somewhat to take the splits back down.  After that I had to dig quite a bit deeper to get my speed back, but when I finished and checked the metrics against last week I realized that I had improved.  Overall heart rate and max both went down by 2 - 3 bpm even though the dew point this morning was 12 degrees higher than last week.  So I am revising my assessment, it appears that I making progress.  Richmond morning temps are  running in the high 40s right now, and I can see finishing out the full distance if hitting the splits becomes a little easier, which should happen from a combination of a little bit more conditioning, rested legs and cooler temperatures.

62F, 78% and calm.  12.0 in 1:45:33, 8:48/mile, 142 bpm, 149 max.  Recovery from yesterday.

58F, 88% and calm.  Started very early, ran 7 at long run pace (8:38/mile), then 5 x 1K, jogging out the mile as recovery.  Intervals, converted to mile pace, were 7:41 (154), 7:21 (158), 7:20 (162), 7:15 (163) ad 7:03 (168).  Average heart rate 148, max 173, had a hard time getting to a high heart rate in these lower temperatures.  Right now the limiting factor is leg strength, not cardio.  I'll go back to weight training after the race.

57F, 97%, E 1 mph.  

Started at 3:50 a.m. to get in my long run before a church cleaning assignment at 8:00.  Ran 24 in 3:26:03, 8:35/mile 144 bpm, 156 max, beating the old 55-59 BQ pace but not the new one.   Wade ran miles 12 through 19 with me, as usual it was helpful to get the company, these long runs are more mental than anything.  I had an 8:39 average after mile 19 and a heart rate of 150, which was unusually low based on my experience.  So I dropped the overall minutes per mile by 4 seconds in the last 5 miles, basically running low 8s, and still only hit a max of 156.  On the other hand, never felt particularly good for this run, front end to back end -- it was at the end of a long week with some hard runs and a lot of miles in it, hopefully that is the only reason.

So I am now going in to the final 3 weeks with a good training cycle under my belt and uninjured, with a respectable shot at a PR if I can get switched to the full when I get to the expo at Richmond.  The only significant run remaining is the third 16-er at GMP, will probably do that about Wednesday, no later than Saturday. Aside from that, I need to plan what to do with the taper; I have some thoughts but nothing settled yet.

Made it to the cleaning assignment, showered and shaved, at 8:03.  Wade was already there and enjoyed watching me exit my car.

61F, 94%, calm and foggy.  Ran LLHR this morning, 10.00 miles in 1:53:24, 11:20/mile, 120 bpm average.  This is better than my best low heart rate pace over the summer, but I think that adjusted for cooler weather it would have been under 11:00 if I had not stopped running these about a month and a half ago.  Legs felt completely recovered from Saturday's run.  I seem to be recovering quickly right now.

60F, 96%, calm, not too warm, but Houston is not letting go of  summer easily.  7 miles in 54:19, 7:44 per mile.  Two w/u miles finishing at 8:05, then 5 tempo miles at 7:26 average pace:  7:30 (157), 7:33 (161), 7:24 (165), 7:19 (168) and 7:26 (171).  Heart rate maxed out at 173.  

This seemed harder than it should have been, so no running on Wednesday.  That said, I read a Dean Karnizius interview recently, claiming that rest is overrated.  When he ran 50 marathons in 50 days, his best time was his last marathon.  But no running on Wednesday.

61F, 90%, NE 3 mph.  Seemed cooler than Monday, don't trust computer weather.  Resting heart rate was quite a bit higher this morning, probably due to lack of sleep.  But still had enough reserve to do the workout, which was  the same as Monday.  Results were a little faster due to legs being more rested, overall 7:38/mile.  Tempo splits were 7:36 (151), 7:30 (161), 7:23 (166), 7:15 (171) and 6:58 (176), average 7:23, maximum heart rate 177.  Can't remember the last time I had a 6 in front of any split, though it was definitely not a sustainable pace for longer than 5K.  But improvement at least.

55F, 93%, WNW 3 mph.  LLHR run this moring, 8.0 miles at 10:50/mile, 120 bpm.  37 seconds per mile faster than my previous best pace at this heart rate.  Pretty much verifies that I get at least 30 seconds boost when the cool weather hits.