For Whom the Dogs Bark

75F, 95% humidity, getting ready to rain but temperature felt good.  Got out the door early and ran 12.23 miles in 2:13:59, average pace 10:57 per mile, low heart rate and flat shoes.  Felt good for a recovery run.  I held a steady pace at a steady bpm for the most part.  Headed to work a half hour after finishing and it was a downpour all the way in.  I was wet anyway because it is hot, but not sure I wanted to get soaked this morning.

Today feels relaxed compared to the weekend.  It was wall to wall mixture of family stuff, work and church from Friday night until Sunday night.  Started with a call from China late Friday night that turned into a 3-day drill to get a document done, most difficult thing was getting everybody on the same page across three cultures.  On top of that was all the normal family and church schedule.  Not to mention a long run.  Happy when I finished everything.

90 minutes on elliptical, frontwards and backwards.  That wasn't the plan, but I fell off the wagon this morning.  I set my alarm last night but didn't turn it on.  By the time I woke up it was too late to do a run before a dentist appointment.  By the time the appointment was over it was too hot and sunny for a run, given my delicate disposition.  So I took a nap.  Then got up and went to the rec center for penance on the elliptical.  After an hour and a half I decided I had punished myself enough and I quit, then took my wife to a new restaurant that turned out to be pretty good.  We will go back.  So all in all not a bad day, even though I missed a key speed workout.  I'll do it tomorrow and figure things out from there.  I'm going to go watch the Astros lose again now.  Predictability is underrated.

79F, 92% humidity, wind NE 2 mph, clear.  Very nice morning for running.  Went 10.65 miles in 1:43:32, average pace 9:43 per mile, regular shoes.  Ran three miles warmup at about 10:45 per mile, then 2X3200 with 2 miles jogging between, then another 1.65 cooldown.  The splits for the 4 threshold miles (2 sets of 2) were 7:27 (162) and 7:23 (174), then 7:44 (169) and 7:37 (180), average 7:33 compared to a goal of 7:30.  So it seems like I almost made it but my second set was way slower, just no more gas in the tank, so I am not yet declaring victory.  Heart rate hit 184 at the end of the last mile, so it was more VO2 max than threshold level.  That is OK, but it shows that I don't quite have this speed under control yet.  One of these days I will go to a track and figure out what my max heart rate is.  Seems ridiculous that I still don't know.  I think it is 190 but I am not sure.  I wonder if it is possible to raise one's maximum heart rate.  I have read that the max goes down as you get more fit, but that doesn't really make sense to me.  Another good thing is that my legs feel fine, actually better than the noodles I was walking around on after getting off the elliptical machine last night.  This was a good run for me, pushed through some significant fatigue.  I may lower my wimp factor from 10 to 9, unless I get major objections, at which point I will scurry back into my cave.

The advertisement on my "Add Entry" page this morning says "Start a Soda/Snack Vending Business".  This is a running blog, right?

79F, 94% humidity, part cloudy and part rainy.  Nice weather out there, didn't drink as much water with the cloud cover and rain.  Ran 13.11 in 2:23:36, average pace 10:57 per mile, flat shoes.  This was a recovery run, low heart rate (131) all the way, I just chugged through it at the same speed for the whole distance.  Got back to my house at 12.7 miles, then decided to do a little extra to make it exactly a half.  Other than that nothing of note.  Got a little bit of rain during the run, but it was more like the sky was sweating, it gets like that here sometimes.  The lightning from the rain never got close, but it did keep me close to the house.

79F, 97% humidity, wind ENE 3 mph though I never felt a hint of a breeze.  Good morning for running anyway, no storms today.  Warmed up for three miles then ran 10x400 with 400 recovery in between.  I ran the intervals overall in the high 6s, mile pace for each 400 split was 7:16, 6:50, 6:38, 6:35, 7:02, 6:50, 6:57, 6:53, 7:07 and 6:59, average 6:55.  Highest heart rate 187.  Pace for the warmup, recovery and cooldown miles was mid to high 10s.  Overall, 10.17 miles in 1:40:12, 9:51 per mile, regular shoes.  This run took the starch out of my legs, but it felt good anyway.  Nothing like speedwork to produce that endorphin glow for the rest of the day.  Everybody at work thinks I'm smiling because it's Friday.

I'm going to run with the neighborhood group again in the morning.  They are going 4 miles.  What's up with that?  Unless they are running it at 10K speed?  There is apparently a summer running memo circulating that I never saw.  I'm going to have to be creative to get a regular run in.

73F, 94% humidity at start, 83F, 92% at end.  Pretty good running weather, at least until the sun came up.  18.76 miles in 3:13:25, average pace 10:19.  This was a weird run.  I left the house and ran to the Y, a little over 7 miles.  I had no water stations so I was going to take a backpack and a handheld.  Fixed it up and put it in the fridge overnight, but when I put the pack on this morning it felt heavy, so I left it and just took the handheld.  Seemed like a good idea at the time, and that arrangement worked fine on the way to Y.  I ran this part at about 10:30 to 11:00 pace.  There must have been 150 runners milling around when I got to the Y, getting instructions, doing warmups, etc.  Turns out there was a 2-mile group and a 4-mile group.  When I asked somebody he said the 4-milers were "back there", as if they were an elite group or something.  Finally they came up and we started at about 7:15 in the morning, already pretty late.  A man and a woman were running out ahead, so I sped up, eventually caught them toward the end then just tucked in behind, didn't want to make a spectacle out of myself as the newbie.  I ran it hard for me, low 8s and high 7s, about MP minus 30 seconds overall, but speeding up throughout, heart rate up to 181 at the end.    I could have taken it slow like the rest of the run, but that wouldn't have been interesting -- I am sure there are several runners in this group with faster marathon times than me, but I can't figure out why experienced runners would do a 4-mile run on Saturday morning and take it slow on top of that, unless there are special circumstances.

After the run there was a lecture by the local running store, stuff like "here is a shoe, here is a gu".  There are some good runners in this group, but this morning was beginners-ville, which was OK, just not what I need.  So I refilled my hand-held and started back in the bright sun about 9:00 or 9:30.  I quickly ran out of water about halfway home.  Exploring a neighborhood looking for solutions I met a woman I go to church with who was happy to fill me up, but she acted like she was looking at a ghost.  Must have looked pretty bad.  She did not invite me in, which was smart on her part.  I thanked her for saving me from certain death and proceeded on.  A couple of miles further I found some lawn sprinklers and took a shower -- had to repeat the shower part when I got home, though.  Finally finished about 10:30 or so and was totally drug out, took an hour just to get re-hydrated.  But it was an interesting morning, although I'm not going to do any more group runs that start at 7:15, at least until the weather cools off.