For Whom the Dogs Bark

77F, 93% humidity.  Out the door at 5:30 for a slow recovery run, clear day with a slow breeze coming from somewhere.  Beautiful out.  11.22 miles in 2:01:02, average pace 10:47, low heart rate and flat shoes.  Only 1 second per mile faster than Friday, but at 10 miles my overall pace was 10:44, which indicates a couple of things:  (1) It is good to be running longer distances when going slow, because there is a lot of pace drift in this heat on the back end of these runs, where I lost 3 seconds/mile overall pace in the last 1.2 miles, indicating there is considerable improvement to be had there; and  (2) 4 seconds per mile faster than Friday at the 10 mile mark, so today was actually a statistical improvement over Friday, which was 10:48 per mile at the 10 mile mark.  That's about all I know for a Monday morning.

79F, 89% humidity, wind SSW 8 mph.  Great morning for running, but don't like the wind coming from that direction.  It feels dry and scratchy, which I know is a funny-sounding complaint.  I am a finely tuned instrument and the least little thing throws me off.  If I ever got deployed to the desert like SlowJoe (or Burt) I would be a mess.

Ran 10.10 in 1:38:17, average pace 9:44 per mile in regular shoes.  It was mostly low heart rate but I threw in some 10K pacing.  The plan was to do 2 x 3200 at 7:30 pace.  First one I almost finished, 7:25 (165 bpm), 7:25 (179 bpm), but the second split was only .8 miles, couldn't hold it the full two, heart rate was climbing rapidly and hit 184 about the time I quit.  I could have pushed through but I am in the live-to-fight-another-day mode so I backed off.  I did run one more fast mile a little later, 7:35 (176 bpm), then jogged slowly until the last mile which I ran at low 9s then down to low 8s, getting my heart rate back up to 175.  So I didn't quite get there but I learned a lot and made progress.  Mid-7s is an ambitious but good speed for me.  It feels more relaxed now, not a killer injury-inducing sprint like a few months ago.  If I could stabilize my heart rate in the 170-175 range at that speed I felt like I could go indefinitely.  Ultimate goal is a 10K at 7:00 pace, but that might be a little much for this summer.

78F, 91% humidity, wind S 5 mph.  Great morning to run.  Did the run in the next neighborhood down, trying to give my neighbors a break.  11.13 miles in 2:04:41, average pace 11:12, flat shoes and low heart rate.  Not as fast as Monday, but I was running more to the low end of the heart rate zone.  Even so I felt very tired after this run, possibly a hangover from yesterday, but I may have to back off at least one day this week.  One interesting thing is that at this slightly slower speed there was almost no pace drift at the end of the run, which makes sense I guess.

One of my kids is bringing home a friend who won't eat anything served at our house.  No fruits, vegetables, casseroles, pasta or dairy.  No meat except fast food burgers or chicken nuggets, not even steak.  She giggles and calls herself a "picky eater".  Basically if it isn't on the menu at McDonalds she won't eat it.  Sad thing is, she is probably closer to normal than me.  No runner would consider subsisting on a junk food diet, but we are the minority.

73F, 100% humidity, wind calm.  Very pretty morning and not too hot, but the humidity was even higher than usual.  The plan was to back off a little bit, as I didn't feel fully recovered when I went to bed last night.  Felt better when I got up but decided to go shorter anyway.  I ran 3 miles at gradually increasing pace and heart rate, 10:52 (125), 8:50 (147), 8:26 (157), then took it to 170 bpm and tried to keep it there.  Next three splits were 7:52 (168), 8:17 (171) and 8:28 (173), so a lot of pace drift at a fairly even level of effort.  Mile six was about the same speed as mile three, but it was quite a bit harder.  Total run was 6.18 miles in 51:44, average pace 8:51.  Lots of upside for this type of workout.  But I did feel better post-workout today, meaning I should be able to do this run or something similar quite often.

Forgot to check the weather, but it felt about the same, clear and little breeze.  I ran 12.2 miles in 1:55:48, average pace 9:30 per mile, regular shoes.  Ran quite a few miles in the 150-160 heart rate zone until finally breaking through to the mid-160s toward the end.  Started to feel a little woozy in the heat so I called it a day.  I need to be able to sustain 170 at the end of a long run for several miles, as in the final 10K.  Once I can do that my times will start to improve more quickly, I think.  I can do it at the front of a run for 10K, not sure why it is different later on, since heart rate is the best indicator of level of effort, but it is different.  You can get tired without your heart rate going up.  Just conditioning I guess.  The goal is to maintain a 9:30 average for 20, then move down to a faster speed.  Baby steps, but at least all systems are working fine and I maintained an even pace.

As a St. George loser (that sounds wrong), I signed up for the Hartford ING marathon on October 9.  It looks like a good race, have heard good things about it.  Flat and sea level, dude.  Who knows, maybe faster than SGM?  That will be my last shot at a qualifying time for Boston 2011.

77F, 95% humidity, clear and dark.  I had a commitment at 8:00 a.m. so I went out the door at 4:00 to do this run, basically the run I missed yesterday.  The goal was to run 20 miles at 9:30 per mile, which is fast enough for me in this heat.  I ran 20.01 miles in 3:09:03, average pace 9:27 per mile.  Some of the splits and heart rates:  Mile 4:  9:31 (147); mile 8:  9:36 (153); mile 12:  9:30 (159); mile 16:  9:19 (167); and mile 20:  9:17 (175).  So my heart rate drifted steadily but not so much that I couldn't make the run.  I didn't hit 170 until about mile 18, but more importantly I didn't break 150 until about mile 6.  That is when I knew I had a chance to pull it off, although I am not sure why I was running better today than yesterday; I would have guessed that running two of these in a row would compromise the second one but it didn't happen.  I almost decided to jog it in after I got a 9:40 for mile 18 since I had banked about 70 seconds of cushion, but managed to pull through and get the pace back down.  I need to be tougher.  This is the first long run I have nailed in a while, it felt good.