For Whom the Dogs Bark

May 08, 2024

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Location:

Cypress,TX,

Member Since:

Oct 10, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

5K: 24:22 (March 2010); 22:33 (October 2010); 20:47 (May 2011); 21:05 (May 2012); 21:33 (September 2012); 21:23 (November, 2013); 22:31 (September 2014)

5M: 39:22 (November, 2012); 35:54 (November, 2013); 36:03 (March, 2015)

10K: 44:08 (November, 2010); 49:20 (July, 2013); 44:07 (April, 2015)

12K: 56:03 (December, 2013); 58:58 (December, 2014)

10M: 1:11:58 (October, 2012); 1:15:24 (October, 2014)

Half Marathon: 1:53:xx (London's Run 2010); 2:05:21 (Cowtown 2010); 1:37:04 (Gusher 2011); 1:42:19 (Huntsville 2011); 1:33:47 (Baytown Jailbreak 2012); 1:33:50 (The Woodlands 2012); 1:42:52 (Texas 2015); 1:49:17 (Jailbreak 2015); 1:38:34 (The Woodlands 2015)

25K: 2:01:47 (Fifth Third River Bank, May 2014)

Marathon: 5:51:35 (Texas Marathon 2009); 6:21:36 (Ogden 2009); 4:58:29 (St. George 2009); 4:13:45 (Texas Marathon 2010); 4:04:12 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2010); 5:11:14 (Hartford ING, 2010); 3:41:43 (Richmond SunTrust, 2010); 3:39:27 (Texas Marathon 2011); 3:41:46 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2011); 3:30:35 (St. George 2011); 3:41:51 (Richmond 2012); 3:49:15 (Texas 2013); 3:46:59 (Paavo Nurmi, 2013); 3:34:04 (St. George 2013); 3:49:51 (Texas 2014); 3:31:59 (Richmond 2014); 3:28:34 (Boston 2015)

Short-Term Running Goals:

3:20, 1:30, 0:20

Long-Term Running Goals:

I'm 60, there is no long term.

Personal:

I live, work and run in Houston, Texas. I have run 17 marathons, some good ones and some others. I prefer straight, flat, cold, sea-level marathons, still waiting for my first one. I feel like there are more PRs out there. When I have them, I am told it is time to dial it back, run for healthy reasons. I'm sure that's right, and I'm sure it won't happen.

My wife and I are from the mountains of the west. We have five kids, three granddaughters and three grandsons. The kids and grandkids are native Texans but we are not -- you have to be born here.

As for my blog title: I run most of my miles before sunrise, sometimes hours before. On the back road of my neighborhood two hours before daylight, I can depend on a pack of mutts behind the boundary fence lighting up when they hear my footsteps. I have wondered what they wanted; but according to Hemingway I needn't ask.

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Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00

Tue, Sep 24, 2013

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
6.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	6.00

74F, 91% (DP 72F), calm. The cold front never materialized, even though the Weather Channel website keeps predicting low 60s -- we haven't even reached high 60s yet and I don't think we will on this weather cycle. I need to get my own met tower.

Last night around dinner time I started running a fever, had to bundle up just to keep from freezing. But I took two aspirin, after a minor drama finding the bottle:

My wife claims it was on this shelf, but I never saw it, still don't. Then hit my pillow at 9:15. Woke up at 5:15 feeling fine, shrugged my shoulders and went out for my planned recovery run. It was my best LHR run in as long as I can remember: 6.00 miles in 1:12:05, 12:01/mile. 118 bpm, 123 max, 11:38 (120 bpm) on the last mile. RHR was 55. All this after doing two 20s in 3 days. Last week I did 3 LLHR runs, they came in at 12:33, 12:54 and 13:08, all at higher average heart rates than this morning. My wife was a little bit ticked when I got back, she was up wondering what I was doing. I shrugged my shoulders.

I have no explanation, I'm just giving up. I should quit looking at a watch, quit checking weather reports, quit doing slow days, quit doing fast days, just run as far as I can as hard as I can every day.

This morning a woman who is out jogging pretty often was running with her daughter, looked to be about 12, big smile on the daughter's face. That works on so many levels. Their dog made a run at me from their garage a few mornings ago, but I'm going to overlook that.

Comments

From Tom K on Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 07:14:37 from 174.58.4.250

I'll tell you that it is good to run without a watch, to run without checking the weather, etc. But will I actually do this myself? Hmmm. Good luck! I hope you can do it.

From I Just Run on Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 08:53:25 from 67.79.11.242

I think the woman's daughter has the key to it all... "smile"!

From derhammer on Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 09:10:11 from 64.245.52.2

Our coach had us doing hard progressive "naked" runs leading up to Boston. And before you get too excited (or horrified) his idea of naked was not to wear a watch. It was OK to know the total time of the run (he timed everyone's start when we took off on the hard porting, and was there at the end to give you your time) but no splits and certainly no HRMs. It's a mentally tough workout but very good for you. I guess if one were to do this on his own he or she could put a watch in a pocket to resist looking.

From SlowJoe on Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 20:35:04 from 66.69.93.8

The front must have hit a wall in Brenham or something.

I don't see the aspirin either, someone is playing tricks on you.

From flatlander on Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 17:13:33 from 198.207.244.102

Tom, interesting, my best half-marathon was run without a watch. Not on purpose, just forgot it.

IJR, yep, definitely the highlight of the run. Wish I still had a 12-year old, or even better a do-over on a couple of my kids. I would definitely make sure we went running together.

DH, I seem to run better without a watch in races, at least shorter ones (haven't tried it in a marathon), but I know when I don't have one otherwise I always think I am going faster than I actually am. You've got me thinking though. I wonder how I would do running SGM without a watch. If there was ever a time to experiment this would be it.

Joe, thank you, thank you for the validation. I thought I was just crazy.

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