For Whom the Dogs Bark

75F, 79%, SSE 10 mph, cloudy but no chance of rain.  Pretty good running weather.  Did 5.75 miles, LHR at 9:52 per mile, seminary run, then back out for fast miles.  One transition, 8:24, then 7:24 (161), 7:32 (166), 7:24 (171) and 7:12 (177), finished with active cooldown mile (8:48).  Overall 12.09 miles in 1:47:01, average 8:51 per mile, flat shoes.  Summer is here, ran through three clouds of bugs.  Swallowed twice.

PM:  4 TM miles, hill work up and down.

76F, 89%, S 5 mph.  For some reason this felt a lot hotter than yesterday, though my times and effort weren't too bad.  I did 3 LHR miles before the seminary run at 9:53 per mile, then was going pretty good on the GMP miles until my right groin started barking at .2 on the last fast mile.  7:27 (156), 7:27 (163) and 7:24 (168).  I could have continued but I know this one:  if you stop soon it's like it never happened -- if you wait you will pay.  It was feeling better as I finished up at about a 9:00 pace, then iced it and I think it will be fine.  Overall 10.01 miles in 1:29:13.

The hullaballoo over the 5K I ran on Saturday apparently reached the point where they had to take down the comment board.  From the e-mail the race director sent out this morning:  "Review sectiion has been taken off Active.com as some comments were uncalled for. I hear the frustrations, but I don't agree with the bad language and name calling."  What a circus. Turns out the "winning time" was slower than my 5K time when I reached 3.11 and turned off my Garmin (either the guy ahead of me got lost or they timed him incorrectly), all kinds of people getting lost, missing un-manned turnaround spots, complete fiasco.   Definitely one to drive away from and forget it ever happened, but sorry I didn't get to read the comment board.

PM:  6 hill work on TM, picked up the last uphill mile a little bit with no ill effects.  Groin feels OK so far.

79F, 74%, WSW 10 mph, at least the wind direction is changing, but there were very few mornings last year that were this warm, even in August.  It will be cool tomorrow if you believe the weather report, but then warm again.  I ran 7.5 then did the seminary run then another 4.5, total time 2:01:54, average pace 10:07 (included two warmup miles, true time was probably more like 10:01).  Decided no MP miles today to protect groin that pulled yesterday.  It feels fine so far this morning, hopefully back to full strength tomorrow, although that is a relative term, I'm running tired by design.  Seems kind of risky but so far I am doing OK.  The thing I have to watch most closely is my right achilles, that is what always hurts until I get warmed up.  I signed up for a replacement 5K Saturday a week, so this coming week I will probably use that race as an excuse to dial things back a bit before a final push to the UVM marathon taper in early June.

PM:  6 TM hill miles, upping the tempo a little bit.  Uphill 6 mph, downhill 6.5.  Thinking of going to a 4% up and down incline, but not sure it's necessary.

60F, 59%, NE 7 mph, clear with old moon rising.  Weather was too nice to be real, actually the silver lining has a cloud, since our cool clear weather is directly related to the horrific tornadoes that have hit much of the southeast in the last 24 hours.  Woke early from insomnia and did all of my run before the seminary run, 5 at low heart rate, average about 9:35, then a transition mile and 4 at GMP:  7:26 (154), 7:40 (156) (oops), 7:36 (158) and 7:30 (162), overall 10.11 miles in 1:27:42, average pace 8:41 per mile.  Notwithstanding missing the mark on a couple of them, they were definitely a little easier in the cool weather, gives me hope for UVM, though I am still not really within range of hitting this pace for a whole marathon.  Still glad to get 3 of them under 160 bpm though.  As for hitting 7:30, I'm just going to have to be patient.  Wasn't that long ago that 8:30 felt too fast.  I missed hitting it for a marathon twice, but eventually I got it and I'll get this one too, sooner or later.

50F, 89%, calm and clear.  Extraordinary running weather.  Ran 4 before seminary, then 5 waiting for my daughter to finish, all LHR, then brought her home and went out for the fast miles after 1 warmup and 1 transition:  7:17 (156), 7:18 (158), 7:16 (163) and 7:00 (170), then 1-mile cooldown, didn't want to waste any of this weather.  Overall 16.02 miles in 2:21:34, average pace 8:50 per mile.  The LHR miles were pretty good, most under 9:30.

74F, 94%, S 7mph and cloudy, pretty good running weather, other than the temperature, humidity and wind.  The goal was to run 10 at GMP + 1, then 10 at GMP.  They say if you can run 10, then 8, then 2 at 10K pace with last quarter at 3K pace you are ready.  I'm not ready.  First 10 went fine, all within a few seconds, + or -, of 8:30, heart rate held at 153 or below, so I was starting to get my hopes up.  By then I was back at the house.  Stopped for a few seconds to refill my water bottle and wring the sweat out of my hair, realized immediately when I stopped that I was pretty tired and thirsty.  I held the pace at 7:30 pretty well at first, started to get my hopes up but then began to fail rapidly.  I thought for a while I could only make 4, but decided that no matter what I was going to do 5, because that's where the magic is.  Fast miles were 7:32 (159), 7:36 (167) (this is where I lost the possibility of going 10), 7:26 (169), 7:26 (173) and 7:19 (177).  Total run was 15.50 miles in 2:07:19, average pace 8:13 per mile.  I probably could have made this run with yesterday's temperatures, but no excuses.  Six weeks to the marathon, so I'll do two more of these, maybe get 7 or 8 then 10.  At least it won't be much hotter than today, so with a little bit of luck I'll get close to that goal.  For now though, this pace is difficult.