For Whom the Dogs Bark

37F, 96% humidity, wind NNE 6 mph, cloudy.  Nice brisk morning out there.  Ran 10.04 in 1:42:01, average pace 10:10 per mile, low heart rate and flat shoes.  Not a particularly good pace but no sense drawing any conclusions based on one day.  I have been dong a lot of faster running lately and neglecting the slow side.  It may be time to run almost exclusively low heart rate for a couple of months, but still thinking about that.  Legs feel fine.

34F, 50% humidity, wind N. 7 mph.  10.05 miles in 1:23:29, average pace 8:18 per mile, fast miles between 7:50 and 8:00 (one 8:03, two 7:45).  Tuesday night run.

28F, 56% humidity, wind N 5 mph.  Very cool out there for us coastal types.  I knew when I ran late and fast last night, followed by TexMex at 10:00, that this morning was going to be a bad run, and it did not disappoint.  Started out low heart rate and went slower and slower.  Final tally was 10.02 miles in 1:45:16, average pace 10:30 per mile, regular shoes.  This was one of the more difficult runs I remember, I was ready for it to be over from the beginning, and it never got better.  I was fully wrapped, two shirts, long pants, gloves and beanie; still, my hands were still so cold I could barely fix breakfast when I got in. 

In the process I saw the food scale sitting there (we have a houseful of food Nazis, that's why we have a scale in the kitchen) and got an idea.  Went into the bedroom, got my flat shoes and put them on the food scale, in a very sanitary fashion of course.  (Good thing Mrs. Flatlander doesn't read this blog.)  9.95 ounces (about 5 ounces each).  Then I weighed my regular shoes.  27.15 ounces (about 13.6 ounces each).  Learned a couple of things:  Turns out that shoe weight is by shoe, not by pair.  And left shoes don't weigh the same as right ones.  My left flat shoe is 4.85 and the right is 5.1.  Forgot to weigh my socks but I'm guessing they are half the weight of the flat shoes.

This all came up because I got a book in the mail yesterday, The Competitive Runner's Handbook.  (I got it not because I am competitive, but because it is supposedly chock full of answers to all the running questions one might have.)  I haven't looked at it much yet, but happened to glance at the shoe section.  They had nothing good to say about minimal shoes, said they are worth a few seconds per mile but the benefit diminishes with distance.  No, mine are worth about 20 seconds per mile at the same heart rate.  I have measured it more than once, apparently they haven't.  Hoping for better advice on other stuff.  On the other hand, Once a Runner also arrived.  Pure poetry.  I learned more by reading the first few pages than I will ever learn from a handbook.

32F, 24F wind chill, 50% humidity, wind NE 9 mph.  Still very cold by our standards but runnable.  I came very close to skipping this run because I was still hung over from yesterday's modest but painful effort.  But went out anyway, was in a hurry due to work deadlines so ran it fast.  Happily the aches and pains faded as soon as I got warmed up and the run went fine, albeit somewhat difficult.  10.01 miles in 1:20:34, average pace 8:03 per mile, flat shoes.  Left the heart rate monitor at home, it doesn't work very well at this temperature, but I was working hard.  Ran 2 slow then 8 fast.  The fast miles averaged 7:38, slowest right at 8:00 (mile 3) and down to 7:27 for miles 5 and 6.  Then I started running out of gas so I let my pace drift by about 15 seconds per mile and managed to finish the last 4 OK, never went over 7:45.  Probably harder than it should have been.  It was a 10K effort but not really 10K speed.  But it was what I had to give today, and I was glad I did.

38F, 50% humidity, wind SE at 3 mph.  Very good running weather today, but I wasn't a good runner today.  Went 10.27 miles in 1:48:05, average pace 10:32 per mile, low heart rate and flat shoes, quite a bit slower than a normal run under these conditions.  Maybe I was still worn out from yesterday, but I didn't feel like it.  It was OK though, I enjoyed the run and felt fine when I was done. 

44F, 85% humidity, wind ENE 6 mph, rainy.  Very nice running weather, but slow again for the second day in a row.  Ran the same route as yesterday, 10.29 in 1:48:46, average pace 10:34 per mile, flat shoes, so even slower.  Not sure what is going on but not panicking just yet. 

Then in the afternoon I ran in a church-sponsored 5K.  The teenagers are getting ready for a 3-day trek in March to commemorate our pioneer heritage, so today there was a 5K run/walk organized to help certain of them know that they needed to get into shape.  Altogether there were 230 runners, very nice turnout.  My friend Wade organized it and did a great job.  As I told him, I have paid quite a bit of money for races that were not organized as well as this one, and this one was free.  Everyone at church today was talking about what a blast they had and lobbying to repeat it next year.  Isn't running great?

My daughter-in-law came out from downtown to run it and to support the trek preparations, so we ended up running together, had a great time, very nice of her to come out.  I ran some more miles before the race, then 2.8 for the "5K", then went back out to bring in my daughter who was walking it with some friends.  She didn't seem too embarrassed to have a parent show up with bony knees and long white socks (just kidding about the socks, the knees are no kidding).  I even convinced them to run a little bit, so altogether I ran about another 5.3 miles, total of 15.59 for the day.  It was a good day to take it easy, as my Achilles was hurting by the end of the day.  It feels better today, probably going to be OK if I don't do anything overly stupid -- not that I won't.

Then, we drove to Kingwood and met Smooth and her daughter for a nice evening at a pretty good local restaurant.  Compared a lot of notes and talked a lot of family background and a lot of running.  It was a great time, glad to meet another blogger.  Thanks Smooth (and your daughter) for taking the time to meet us!