For Whom the Dogs Bark

48F and blustery.  Ran 6.18 miles in 1:13:29, average pace 11:54, low heart rate.  Back to a normal routine today, though my miles are still lower than before.  I can tell I have lost some conditioning.  The plan is to run a half at the Fort Worth Cowtown Marathon this Saturday, but I will run it with my kids at their speed if they come, which is a little slower but fine for where I am at.  More important that they have fun anyway, and I am still a ways away from adding much speed.

42F, wind N 10 mph, cloudy with weather moving in -- they are predicting snow tonight, but I don't believe it.  Ran 7.77 in 1:34:15, average pace 12:08, low heart rate.  I felt really good today, when I saw my average pace I knew why.

I stopped at about 7.5 and did weights.  Wish I could say what I did.  Some arm stuff and some leg stuff.  I just looked at the pictures.  Anything with glutes I hopped on -- I'm trying for a bigger you know what.  Anyone who has seen me knows that is an ambitious goal.

47F, wind NW 14-19 mph, sunny (we actually got snow flurries yesterday afternoon, but nothing stuck).  I ran at lunch today because my son called this morning on his way to school from seminary.  The transmission on the truck blew out.  Nice little present to start the day.  The debate is whether to buy a new transmission or a new truck.  I pointed out that I could buy a transmission every year and still be better off than getting a new truck.  Plus trucks are supposed to be old.  The older and uglier the better.  If I see somebody driving a truck that is too fancy, like with GPS, heated seats and mood lights, I think he is a poseur who probably doesn't own a good socket set.  My son and his mother, on the other hand, think that is just fine and would add a custom sound system to the list.

Oh yeah, the run.  I went 7.91 miles in 1:13:06, average pace 9:15 per mile, no heart rate monitor.  That is about where I wanted to be, the goal was to air it out a little bit and see if my injuries stayed away.  They did, and after I ran the second mile in 8:54 I thought I might as well run the rest of it at that pace.  Well, it didn't happen, never saw another 8 the whole run.  I have lost some conditioning to be sure.  The wind was pretty hard and I don't like baking my skin in the noonday sun.  But those are mere excuses.  You are what you run.

29F, clear and calm, great running weather.  Ran 7.77 in 1:32:46, 11:57 per mile, low heart rate.  This is the same exact run as Tuesday, down to the stop for weightlifting at 7.5 miles.

My groin hurt all night after running "fast" yesterday, but it didn't really bother me this morning.  All the aches and pains disappeared at mile 3 and never came back.  I like the idea of doing weights toward the end of the run rather than after.  It seems that running the extra quarter after lifting gets rid of quite a few kinks.  Some people in the weight room acted like they were waiting for me when I came in, said they saw me all the time and wondered how far I run.  They seemed impressed, even though most people on this blog regularly do similar workouts.  I guess it is just a different world once you get serious about running.  But I'm gonna have to start running in the dark more, I hate to make a spectacle out of myself.

Current drama at the house is whether to buy a new truck -- stay tuned.

49F, cloudy and slight breeze, nice running weather with no gloves or beanie.  I ran 5.2 after taking my son to seminary, then had to take my daughter to the bus stop, then went back out for another three, totaling 8.18 in 1:37:29, average pace 11:55, low heart rate. 

I am going to fix the old truck, so there is no joy in mudville with this stick-in-the-mud old dad.  Everybody but me wanted a new truck, even the wife, although she understands the economics better than some of my math-challenged teenagers.  In the meantime life in the morning is complicated getting everybody off with one less vehicle.

34F, clear and cold.  This was not supposed to be a race report today, just a run with my son and soak in the atmosphere.  My time reflects it, a full 13 minutes slower than my previous half in Phoenix a month ago.  The plan was to run at about an 11:00 pace to ensure that he finished.  He came up lame early in the race, bad shin splints.  We tried walking about a half-mile but he only got worse, so I sent him back and finished it by myself.  By that time there was no hope of getting a good time, not to mention the fact that I have been recovering from my own injury and don't have the conditioning to run well -- even if I did I wouldn't want to push it hard for fear of re-injury.  Still, I ran as fast as I could given the sudden change of plans.  I don't have mile splits because the memory in my Garmin filled up halfway through the race.  That was also frustrating.  The race results show me doing quite a bit better overall (1892/4753) than in my age group (114/197).  The same thing happened in Phoenix.  I need a new age group. 

One good thing, I don't appear to be having any trouble recovering.  No lingering pains or stiffness of any note, even though I hopped into a small car immediately after the race and drove all the way back to Houston.  I figured I would need to be manhandled out of the automobile, but I was fine.  Secondly, I ran negative splits -- toward the end of the race I was approaching my previous pace, so I am probably going to be OK.  Finally, due to my hopeless position when I started running, I must have passed over a thousand people -- I improved by about 700 places just from the 10K mat to the end.  I was almost never around anybody who was running my speed.

A couple of interesting things happened.  I was following a group of runners for a while with blue t-shirts that said "The Pine Cove Team".  I wondered where that could be.  All of a sudden this neighborhood we were in went crazy, and the blue boys started high-fiving and body-bumping everybody.  Obviously, we had entered Pine Cove.  Good thing I waited to pass them.

Also, some course confusion, if that is possible in a race this big.  The marathon and half-marathon groups ran together for about 8 miles and some change.  Then at about mile 11 there was old man questioning some officials about where the courses split.  He said "I am in the marathon".  Pretty sad, I'm pretty sure he didn't finish his race.  And the kids 5-k turned into a 1.8 mile race because a cop on a motorcycle stopped to direct traffic, everybody ran the wrong way and nobody stopped them -- wonder how they found their way back.  Lots of chaos today, 21,000 people in a relatively small area created some tough logistics before, during and after.

Here's to better races.