For Whom the Dogs Bark

77F, 89%, SW 10 mph.  Pretty good weather this morning, but trying to rain, which makes the air feel muggier than the official humidity reading.  Ran 11 LHR, 10:10 pace.  On the last mile I got my son Austin and his friend to video my form at 7:30 pace, worked much better than the phone camera on Saturday.  Very surprising how slow that pace looks compared to how it feels.  Austin was embarrassed standing out there on the corner with a camera, but that's what teenagers are for.  When we tried to send the video to my e-mail account we discovered it is about 270 MB for 1 minute of film.  Something screwy about that, I know video eats a lot of MBs but not that much.  We have low IT IQs.  Total 12.04 miles in 2:01:47, average pace 10:07 per mile.

Austin, 18, says he is going to do an iron man.  He is a good swimmer and a dedicated gym rat, so I think he might be able to do it.  He gets shin splints all the time which has limited his running, so he is going to have to get around that somehow.  He is leaving for college in a month and thinks doing something like this will keep him out of trouble.  I think he might be right, but I told him no bike until Christmas, when he will have a better feel for how this is going.  I'm guessing he can buy a pretty good used tri-bike from a washed out yuppie somewhere.

78F, 83%, calm but getting ready to rain, air not moving at all.  Perfect running weather, couldn't ask for better.  Walked out the front door and broke into a sweat, so no need for a warmup, very convenient.  Ran 4 at LHR, 9:52 per mile, then 8 x 1000, jogging out each mile:  7:22 (155), 7:13 (161), 6:59 (168), 7:03 (172), 7:03 (174), 7:33 (168), 7:05 (174), 7:11 (177), average 7:11 pace for each interval.  Then slogged it out to 13.

Tragedy in our office yesterday.  The copy room guy had a massive heart attack in the middle of the afternoon and never recovered.  He was talking to my secretary and just went down.  Keith had a wife and 2 young kids, humblest guy you will ever meet, about 35 years old and seemingly in good health.  It is different when a young person checks out early, harder to understand.  Everybody is shaken, I hope we do right by his family.

75F, 98% and calm.  Thankfully not 100% humidity today.  Got out late due to work issues from the night before, so ran entirely in the daylight starting at 6:30.  I figured it was 85 or 90 by the time I finished, but it was only 79, solar effect on my skin made it seem warmer than it was.  Held LHR until about mile 9 then it disappeared, could have slowed down but didn't have the patience or the time to do that, so finished up at higher than LHR.  13.17 miles in 2:15:31, average pace 10:18 per mile.  Not a good run but it is done.  I'll catch up on the other blogs soon.

76F, 95%, calm.  Humidity coming down slowly but surely.  Ran 6 LHR miles, average 10:02, then 10 x 200 as fast as I could run, which wasn't very fast.  Pacing was 6:10, 6:18, 6:20, 6:08, 5:53, 6:04, 6:05, 6:07, 6:11, 5:57, average 6:08, 200 recovery.  Then another 5 or 6 at about 8:50 pace, total 14:07 miles in 2:12:18, average 9:24 per mile, maximum heart rate 182.  I need some speed.

My workplace is somewhat Darwinian.  We have summer interns here now trying to qualify for permanent positions, presumably because there is nothing else to do in the heat.  It all started when an e-mail went around announcing that our building is putting in a free workout facility with lockers and showers.  So one of the summer interns sends out a "reply to all" which says:  "Wow, pretty stoked about this new gym. Just when I thought my deltoids couldn't get any more ripped.  If I join the frim, will you be my workout partner Shaw (by the looks of it, you might need a workout partner)?"  Shaw, in addition to being a potential workout partner, is actually a partner.  He writes back:  "There is a point every summer where a summer associate makes an unwise decision. We set the over/under this year at 4 weeks after the program started. I took the under...looks like I win."

Which ones are the deltoids again?  I'm gonna take this kid for a run.

79F, 88%, S 5 mph.  Felt hot today, maybe because it was.  Mainly though I was hung over from yesterday's run, it took more out of me than I realized.  My legs felt dead and I was getting nowhere trying to run LHR.  Unexpectedly, you need fresh legs to run slow.  So I gave up and sped up and it turned into a progression run.  Felt much better after that.  1st mile was 11:03 (124), last mile 8:22 (161), maxHR 164.  Total 13.25 miles in 2:02:49, average pace 9:16 per mile.  Happy to be done with this one.

80F, 85%, SSE 4 mph to start, 84F at finish.  Came close to not going out today when I saw it was 80 yet again.  Like continuing to go out is enabling behavior -- the running gods see no reason to change the weather if people keep going out.  But I needed my run, so out I went.  The group was meeting at the Y at 5 for 18, got there on time ready to go, none of the fast runners showed.  Just as everybody was leaving I realized I needed to make yet another trip to the facilities.  Locked at the Y, so in my car over to the gas station, started out alone 10 minutes later and that is how it stayed the whole run.  I met the group coming back after I had gone a little less than 6 miles, which means no way did they do 18.  But they were altogether and going even slower than me, so things worked out OK.

I didn't feel good at all this morning, some stomach bug, but when I started running I felt surprisingly good, so decided to do 20, just not that fast.  Probably could have done it faster but by the end of the run I was glad I hadn't.  Had the EFS thing going and lots of water stops.  20.07 miles in 3:06:56, average 9:18 per mile, fastest mile was 8:43 and the slowest 9:38 other than the first 2.  Heart rate started out high 130s and ended up low 160s.  Since I was alone I took some of the off-road routes I used to run when I thought I was going to be a trail runner, was nice running them faster than I used to.

Then we took all our kids and our granddaughters to the circus.  I would say the circus was the preferred activity today.