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.

63F, relatively moderate humidity. Unusally warm for this time of year, cooling off as we speak. Got off the plane last night and wasn't expecting much, this morning. Surprisingly, my legs felt fresh from the start and I took longer strides (average 1.03M), which felt good. Progression run, 8:43 pace down to 7:40 pace for the last one. HRmax about 171, averaged 160 for the run, which was too high for these paces. Not that important though. Plane rides and jet lag mask what is really going on.

48F, NNE 10 mph,gusting to 15, new weather moving in. Ran 8.0 at 8:39 pace, half of it with Wade. 149 bpm, 159 max. Started out pretty sore in the upper groin, something about my new longer-stride form that I have stumbled onto. Worked its way out eventually, but was in no mood to run as hard as yesterday. Wade is running the Texas Ragnar with a local team, got me thinking. Nah. 

52F. 8 miles in 1:09:10, 8:39/mile, 149 bpm, 159 max, fastest split 8:23.

45F, 6.57 miles @ 8:36/mile, 149 bpm, 158 max, fast split 8:27. Groin still bothering me, but somewhat runnable, took the weekend off, starting with Thursday.

43F. 6.5 miles @ 8:24/mile, 154 bpm, 165 max, fastest split 7:49. Starts out somewhat painful in the hip flexors, then things loosen up and I can run OK, though it is always there.

37F. 6.0 at 8:29 pace, fastest split 7:53, 151 bpm average, 161 max. Heart-rate wise, was a little better than yesterday.

53F. 6.0 at 8:10/mile. First split 9:05, last split 7:40, 155 bpm, 170 max. Hip flexors felt a little looser, felt somewhat relaxed at the higher speeds, so making progress. The good thing about these short runs is I can do them hard and come back the next day for a repeat. I'm thinking of going up to Grand Rapids to run the 25K again in May, with a goal of breaking 2 hours. The course measures long, of course, so I have to average about 7:35-7:37 to actually hit 2 hours, though the math, when you calculate minutes per mile for 25K, comes out to only 7:43. The distance is short enough I think I can maybe pull it off without doing a lot of long stuff, since the race ends right before the bonk.

55F. 6.0 at 9:10 pace, 140 bpm, 148 max. Really sore this morning, only one split under 9:00, kind of amazing, really.

55F. Wade drove to my house and we ran in the neighborhood. 2 warmup, then 2 fast ones, then 2.7 cooldown. The fast ones were 7:31, 7:14, average heart rate for the run 155, max 174 bpm. Best stride length was 1.12 meters. Overall 8:10 pace.

65F, 96%, SW 4 mph. 6 at 8:23/mile, 151 average, 162 max. Fastest split 8:04. Felt generally OK, but groin area was still somewhat tender for the first couple of miles.

43F. 6.0 at 7:45/mile, 160 bpm average, 178 max.

55F, 6.0 in 48:46, 8:07/mile, 152 bpm average, 163 max.

43F, 6.0 in 46:06, 7:41/mile, 156 bpm average, 172 max.

10K on hotel TM, medium effort.

Another 10K on hotel TM in Cairo, medium-hard effort.

10K on TM at hotel in Dubai.

Another 10K on TM. These are being run mostly in the 8:15 to 8:30/mile range.

Back home in Cypress, Texas. 64F, 6.01 miles in 51:23, 8:33/mile, 159 bpm average, 180 max. Yikes.

66F. Ran a 5K race with my younger son, pretty steady pace throughout, 7:28, 7:33, 7:26. Forgot to turn my watch on at the start, so not sure exactly how long the course was. But he had fun and it felt good to race again. Still getting my land legs under me after getting off the plane earlier in the week, but gradually recovering.

57F, 6.0 at 8:33 pace, 153 bpm average, 174 max.

66F, 6.0 at LLHR, 11:22/mile. Not a good LLHR run, have done over a minute per mile better at this heart rate. Getting fat.

68F, 6.0 at 7:45/mile, 167 bpm, 183 max.

68F, 6.0 at 11:30/mile, LLHR.

57F, 10.0 at 7:57/mile, 164 bpm average, 177 max.

37F, 6.0 at 9:11/mile, 142 average, 148 bpm max. Still recovering from Saturday's monster effort.

64F, 6.0 at 8:29 pace, 150 bpm average, 163 max.

6.0 on TM at gym, medium effort.

43F, 6.0 at 8:22 pace, 151 bpm average, 168 max.

49F, 10 at 8:00/mile, 158 bpm average, 170 max. So better than a week ago. Trying to get ready for Ragnar in about 3 weeks. My first leg, 7.4 miles, is rated "Very Difficult". I have no idea what that means. It is in the Texas Hill Country, but it's not like I will be crossing the Continental Divide. There must be some downhill in it.

54F. 7.0 miles at 8:36/mile, 146 bpm, 155 max.

66F. 7.0 at 8:16/mile. 152 bpm, 162 max.

72F. 7.3 miles at 8:25/mile, 154 bpm, 161 max.

73F. 7.0 miles at 8:10/mile. 157 bpm average, 172 max.

Thunderstorms, so 5 on TM at gym. Just under 8:00 overall pace. HR max 170.

49F.

Out early this morning for 10.5 in the neighborhood, including 4 with Wade. Ran them slow, even for me, 8:47/mile, HR 145 bpm. Finished atvabout 6:00 a.m., including a PoP stop. Then after thinking it over I decided to drive downtown for a final four race, which turned out to be pretty cool even though I was alone.

I first noticed the race when we got a notification at work about downtown traffic flows over the weekend, which would be screwed up because of the "Final Four Marathon". I usually know when there is a marathon in town so I checked it out. Turned out to be the 4-mile variety.

Since I am now out of Ragnar, and since temperatures were ideal, I made a game-time decision this morning to run it. It was a late start, 8:30, so there was plenty of time. It was actually cold enough that I had to wear an extra shirt until just before the gun. Warmed up a couple of tenths, took my place in line and had to wait for the festivities. Very heavy military emphasis -- there was a wounded vet representing each of the teams. Each vet was either a single or double amputee, special forces in most cases. (IEDs are a despicable form of warfare. We only see the vets. There must be 10 or 20 amputee civilians back in Iraq and Afghanistan for every vet we see here.) Then an active duty sargeant sang the national anthem and she was excellent. I was pumped up when the race began, though I was crawling at the start because too many 11:00/mile runners were crowding the start line.

Another single amputee was actually running it with one of those spring legs, at a good clip, didn't catch him until about mile 1 -- seeing him was great, made my race and I told him so. He was gracious about it even though he was working very hard.

When the first mile came in at 6:30 I figured something was wrong; when the second one came in at 6:27 I thought maybe it would be the real deal. Then at mile 2.44 I saw the 2-mile marker, along with 15:19 on my watch, and the gig was up. Too many downtown buildings to measure accurately. It doesn't mean the course is accurate, but I have nothing better to go by than the claim that it is 4.00 miles. By my watch I had 6:52/mile overall speed, but my official speed was 7:22, still OK due to the previous miles this morning.

Finished 3rd in my age group, 10 seconds behind the second-place guy, though I didn't know it because he had the sense to start 3 seconds behind the gun. I was 30 seconds back. 71 overall out of about 2200 runners. As I think about it, maybe the course was long, because 7:22/mile shouldn't have been good enough for top 3%. I'll never know, though; it is clear looking at the Garmin upload that my watch had no idea where I was until I got out of downtown.

Ate some food and went home. Best t-shirt: "A lot of work for a free banana."

52F, 8.4 miles at 8:47/mile, 141 bpm, 147 max.

52F, 8.7 miles, LLHR, 11:02/mile, 120 bpm. Thinking of doing SGM in October as a last hurrah. The plan would be to slog out LLHR all summer long then do a month of intense lead-in like I did for Boston last year. Travel interruptions should be reduced this summer.

61F. 8.0 at 7:57/mile, 154 bpm average, 170 max. Good run, starting to feel some extra spring in my legs. Resting heart rate was 48 sitting out on the curb, lowest I have seen in a long time.

55F, missed yesterday due to work commitments. Today was 8.0 miles at 8:27/mile, 149 bpm average, 157 max. Wade wanted to go slower today, as he ran twice yesterday, compared to my zero.

55F. 15.0 miles at 8:14/mile. Was planning on 20 even though I got a late start (6:30 a.m.), which I didn't regret. Then at the HM mark I started to chafe (forgot the body glide, last time this summer I will do that) and my feet started to get sore. I caught the 8:30 guy at mile 3, the 8:20 guy at mile 11 and the 8:15 guy at mile 14. Average HR 151, max 164, last mile 161 bpm. At these heart rates I had enough stamina to push through, but my body is a little bit short of absorbing 20 miles worth of pounding right now. Bad news, I am starting to get in the PR frame of mind again. Getting on a plane tonight, gone for about 2 weeks, so mostly TM miles for a while.