For Whom the Dogs Bark

74F, 91% humidity, calm.  Beautiful morning for running, a sliver of moon peeking through some morning cloud cover just ahead of the rising sun.  Today is a holiday, so met at the YMCA again with Wade for 10.  Went 10.02 miles in 1:29:25, average pace 8:56 per mile, flat shoes.  Most interesting thing was my heart rate, which never broke 160 despite our running 10 seconds faster than Saturday, even more interesting because Wade was getting close to 170 and he was 10 beats lower than me on Saturday.  The only explanation is the flat shoes, definitely gonna run Hartford in these.  I estimate they are about 20 seconds per mile faster than regular shoes and this run seemed to confirm that.  Good stuff, but mainly I am thankful to be running without injury.  Happy Labor Day.

79F, 84% humidity, wind ESE 6 mph.  Great running out there, the sky was getting ugly with the outer bands of Hermine reaching all the way up here.  It has been raining hard all day, I ran very early and it turned out to be the only time today it wasn't raining, also turned out to be the hottest part of the day.  Ran 10.01 miles in 1:49:01, average pace 10:54 per mile, regular shoes.  I felt some weakness in my ankle so decided to go slow today as a precaution.  I needed it anyway, as my legs felt a little tired, and combined with the heavier shoes and higher temperatures it was a slow day.   I was down to 11:30 on my 9th low heart rate mile, so I bagged it and ran the last one in at marathon pace, no point to it but it felt good anyway.  It felt a little fast at first, but at least my heart rate topped out at about 164 so not too bad for the end of the run.  Hopefully I can get in some fast ones tomorrow.

Coming around the bend on my second mile there was an officer sitting there with his window down.  He didn't return my "hey" and I grew alarmed, hurried back into the house to leave a note warning my daughter to tell her ride to be careful -- this guy meant business, very unfriendly.  He wasn't there ten minutes later though, guess there wasn't enough going on in our leafy suburb to keep him busy.  Wouldn't have minded seeing him on Saturday morning at 4:00 a.m. when a teenager coming in from a night of partying accelerated through a stop sign and almost ran me over.  That's all for today from crime central.

77F, 94% humidity, wind ESE 10-20 mph.  Last remains of Hermine blew through last night, outer bands only, lots of rain but no real wind.  There were a few stars showing early, mid-summer night's weather, with apologies to Bill S.  I ran 10.13 miles in 1:29:11, average pace 8:48 per mile, flat shoes.  Warmed up for 2 (10:57 and 10:05), then ran 7 at marathon pace (8:37, 8:26, 8:25, 8:20, 8:23, 8:38, 8:20, heart rate climed from 149 to 171, 8:27 average for this part, 10 seconds below MP), then the last one at 10K pace (7:37, 181 bpm, max 185 bpm) followed by a very short cool down then iced my right groin.  Happy that I did not have to run to failure to do this run, and the groin seems fine so far.  My legs remind me they are there every time I try to slip in a little speed.  Depending on how things go today I might try the same thing tomorrow in regular shoes, which get heavy with sweat toward the end of the run.  It will be a good test.

76F, 97% humidity, calm and clear, beautiful morning outside, glad to be out and moving around.  My legs felt heavy at first, meaning I will need to back off soon, but not today.  Ran 12.54 miles in 1:52:05, average pace 8:56/mile, regular shoes.  Warmed up for 2, 11:04 and 10:03 then ran 10 miles at marathon pace (8:37), actually averaged 8:31 for the 10, slowest mile 8:41 and last full mile at 8:17, then slogged it in for .54 to finish the run.  I didn't run all the way to failure, but I did lose my appetite, worked pretty hard on this one, felt a little woozy at the end when I stopped but was happy to make my goal in soggy shoes and in full summer heat.  Iced my right groin down and everything seems fine, although it appears I have a cold coming on, so don't know what the rest of the week will bring.  I assumed my heart rate in heavy shoes would be about 10 bpm higher than yesterday, but it was actually one or two beats lower for most of the miles.  I don't think I got that much better in one day?  My fast miles were 4 seconds per mile slower than yesterday, but that doesn't really explain it.  Just one of those mysteries.

I got curious about my maximum heart rate and went on the internet to poke around.  That was a mistake.  It is apparently a religion that HRmax is 220 minus your age, which puts me at 165, meaning I was at or above my "max" for the last 6.5 miles of my run today.  It gets so bad that they have bloggers worried about what happens if they run faster than their max, which is exactly the same as asking what happens if I run faster than I can run.  One thing that has me a little worried, though, is that there are a lot of people who are convinced that you can damage your heart by running at max, like red-lining your engine.  I am pretty sure that is questionable as well, but I am looking for reliable science.  No one is more aware of the benefits of low heart rate training than me, but I also know that the faster I run the better I feel, not sure where the damage is.

UPDATE:  Here is some reliable information from my brother-in-law's blog.  He is a smart cardiologist in Omaha and a 3:00 marathoner.  He says don't worry about HRmax, so I won't.  A couple of the comments are interesting as well:  http://www.blogalegent.com/Cardiology-Maximum-Heart-Rate

75F, 94% humidity, calm and clear, another beautiful summer morning.  Got out dark and early and ran 14.00 miles in 2:28:05, average pace 10:35 per mile, flat shoes and low heart rate.  Good run but very fatigued, in a different way than on fast days.  Must mean it is doing some good.  Still up in the air what I am going to do tomorrow, but feet and legs feel fine other than being tired.  I weighed 165 at the start of the run and 159 after, and drank 1/2 liter on the run, so sweat a total of 7 pounds, lovely.

Just to illustrate the effects of our humidity, I had to get a new cell phone this week.  My old one shorted out from getting wet in my pocket, in a plastic bag.  We get soaked every day, and a sandwich baggie is insufficient protection for electronics.  I think that is similar to what happened to my Garmin earlier this summer, even though it is supposed to be somewhat water resistant.  I bought a waterproof phone, very old-fashioned looking and heavier, but hopefully it will last longer.  Running is turning into an expensive habit.

78F, 93%, wind SSW 3 mph, clear.  Nice morning for running, but I didn't feel too good.  I went to bed with a fever last night and turned off my alarm, figured I would make a decision in the morning what to do.  Woke up right on schedule at 4:30, still hot, got up and puttered around, almost went back to bed but then decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if I went out for a few easy miles.  I have been running pretty hard and didn't need to go hard again today anyway.  Wade is out of town this weekend, but I ran down to the Y to see if I could find anybody, about 7 miles from my house, about a 9:35 pace other than the first mile, so it was a legitimate MP+1 long run pace.  I was very hot and soaked to the skin by the time I got to the Y.  The other groups had mostly left for their run, so I rested a bit, filled up on water and caught another group just as they were leaving.  My neighbor Kathy was in the group, so ran with her for 3 miles to the group's turnaround point and then ran the rest of the way home solo, probably about a 9:45 pace but just a guess because I forgot to turn on my watch for the first part of the return.  Came home the long way to make it 15.5 for the day.  Very tired but surprisingly my heart rate behaved, never went over 161, just proves you can get really tired without pumping up your heart.

My nephew Brian from Orem is visiting for medical school interviews and he is out running now, this weather must be a shock but he hasn't complained.  He is running TOU next week with his dad, who blogs on here as Stephen.  It will be a first marathon for both of them, I think they will do well.  Brian is pretty quiet and modest, but after questioning him closely it appears that he plans to beat his dad pretty easily.