For Whom the Dogs Bark

78F, 83%, S 6 mph.  A little cooler.  Ran 8.0 miles at LHR, average pace 10.09 per mile.  Heart rate drift is dramatic after only 3 or 4 miles.

78F, 90%, S 5 mph.  It rained last night so I thought the air would be somewhat fresh.  Instead it was steaming off the pavement.  Started out with 6.5 LHR miles, average pace 10:02.  Even that was deceiving, because I met my neighbor Todd and started running with him at about 4 miles in.  Lost my LHR right there, because he was going just slightly faster than my easy pace.  Good to get caught up, though, he is making a charitable donation to his daughter's school which will get him into the Houston Marathon instead of going through the lottery.  Cool that they let you decide where your money goes.

After Todd veered off I contined and ran a transition 1/2 mile from 6.5 to 7, then busted out my best imitation of a 1K tempo interval.  Counterfeit all the way.  I don't bother with water on runs under 10 miles and I paid today.  I was thirsty at 6.5 and it just got worse.  Started out OK on the interval but quickly disintegrated into a blob on the pavement.  Goal was about 4:03 and I ran it in 4:15, 6:50 mile pace, average heart rate 178, which means my max was probably close to 190.  When I finished I had no choice but to sit down on the curb and feel sorry for myself.  After a few minutes I got up and did the jog of shame back to the house.  Good thing I only wanted to do one because it emptied the tank.  Misery loves company, though.  My daughter is visiting and decided to go for a run after I finished.  She was also complaining bitterly when she got back.  Something about the heat today is lethal.  If you just looked at the thermometer it wouldn't seem so bad, but I think the actual humidity, with the rain evaporating, was higher than the official reading.  At least we got some rain.

82F, 82% S 7 mph to start, 70F, 88%, N 26 at end.  No injury, no worries, the truncated miles are weather-driven, in a good way.  It was the same old story when I stepped out this morning, very hot and very muggy.  Then about a mile and a half in I started hearing loud noises, first a moan and then a roar, in the tops of the trees.  Almost biblical out there in the dark.  Within 10 steps the wind turned and I felt a blast out of the north.  If not cold it was certainly cool.  Weather station is posting 70F and 26 mph, but it is cooler and windier than that out there.  At first it was just the wind, then a few drops at mile 3.  At mile 3.5 I heard some thunder so distant that I thought I was imagining it.  Then everything let loose and I came scurrying in.  Thunder means lightning, which is dangerous, the one weather condition I don't run in.  We may not have mountains here, or any hills for that matter, but south Texas thunderstorms are the best, they shake the ground.  Still raining hard an hour later, hopefully they are getting a good dose in Central Texas.  Too bad really, it was nice and cool out there, but best to live to run another day -- and to do all the other things I have to do in this life.

4.35 LHR in 43:46, average pace 10:08.

71F, 93%, calm and cloudy.  Felt great out there this morning, the storm has passed but it isn't hot yet.  We got a very good drenching most of the day yesterday, an honest to goodness storm that will go a long way toward alleviating the drought.  Ran 6.5 at LHR, 9:56 per mile, then 0.5 transition followed by 1K at 7:04 pace (168 bpm), followed by a 0.84 cooldown to my front door, 8:01 pace; overall 8.46 miles in 1:19:56, average pace 9:27.  The tempo interval felt much better today, no disorientation at the end, on the other hand my heart rate was 10 bpm lower.  So maybe 7:00 is my tempo pace instead of 6:30 -- at least it was nice dreaming about those faster splits.  Need to find a pace I can do two or three times a week for 5 repeats without trashing my legs.  Last cycle I was running the tempos too slow and ended up with not enough speed on race day.

Missed my run yesterday because of work pressures, some days there is nothing you can do, so a couple of mishaps this week on the miles leaves me quite a bit short.

This morning was 80F, 98%, calm with a very old moon, barely a sliver in the sky.  Wade and I met the "green" group at 4:30 down at the Y and I did 13.00 at a pretty good clip, 8:21 per mile, nothing faster than 8:07 and nothing slower than 8:36.  Average heart rate was 161, max 177.   I'm not sure what we are proving by running at 4:30 in the morning, hardly worth going to bed.  I had to get up at 3:30 just to make sure my GI tract was in order for the run.  There is one runner, Vivien, who needs to run early to meet other commitments, so I think that is why we are all doing it at that time.  One problem is that it hasn't completely cooled off by 4:30.  When we finished it was 75F, a 5 degree drop.

A little bit of competition in this group, unlike the slower group, who seem to thrive on not competing.  I can see both points of view, but it is fun to push and be pushed by other runners once in a while.  Eric is the fastest guy, has a 3:17 marathon under his belt, so at the turnaround he took off.  I was running with Helmut and Viven and sure enough, they chased him.  I had no choice but to go with them, since I was lost and I am afraid of the dark.  Toward the end I peeled off at the bridge and went the long way back in so I could get in a full 13.  The rest of them got about 12.8, in fact Eric faded with stomach issues.  Wade said he was only going to do 8 and turned back early, then ended up doing 11.5, he should have just stayed with us.  I felt strong in the legs but my stomach was bothering me to a certain extent.  I was using the faster pace in the heat to train with EFS, which tastes a lot like GU but not so sticky.  Managed to gag down two swigs, one at mile 4 mile and the second at about mile 9 -- probably 2 ounces altogether.  I figured out that running hard in the heat simulates the end of a marathon for me at 10 o'clock in the morning with the sun up, at least as far as stomach issues go, so now I have something to do this summer.

Time to get back to work next week.