For Whom the Dogs Bark

51F, 89%, N 6 mph.  The goal this week and next is to run as many marathon-pace miles as possible, or even at tempo pace, though "marathon pace" seems remarkably similar to "tempo" pace.  Ran 5 at 8:30 then 5 at 7:20 overall:  7:35, 7:07, 7:11, 7:21 and 7:13, max 175 bpm.

54F, 87%, E 3 mph.  Last cool morning for a while.  I got up at 4:30 and puttered around because I decided to join the group for a track workout.  Arrived at the track right on time at 5:30 -- they were just finishing up their 4th Yasso.  So fail again, really having a hard time getting this track workout right.  I ran a lap warmup then jumped right in, ran them in 3:28, 3:10, 3:12, 3:12, 3:10, 3:06, two minutes rest in between.  The first one felt very uncomfortable and I finished last, but it was fine after that.  I finished third (out of 8) on all of the others -- a couple of gumbies up front were running low 3s and high 2s.  It felt great to be on a quarter-mile track -- first time since high school, believe it or not.

So I showed up wearing my heart rate monitor but left my Garmin at the house.  How dumb is that?  My heart rate results must be to Pluto by now (that is, if Pluto were really a planet).  Maybe at least my signal screwed up somebody else's machine.

Speaking of machines, I called Garmin and they are going to fix my Forerunner 305.  I actually have two broken ones, so they gave me the faithful customer discount, $50 apiece.  How cool is that?  Can't believe I didn't throw away the watches.  So instead of spending $200 on a 210X that I don't like, I am spending $100 and getting two new watches.  (Thanks for the tip, Preston!)  Once these two machines break I will retire, unless my Jingas give out first. 

67F, 100%, NE 5 mph.  Same run as Monday, but 16 degrees hotter, tired legs, very different result.  Overall 10 miles in 1:19:38 (1 minute slower than Monday), 7:58/mile, 156 bpm (Monday was 153 bpm).  First 5 at regular pace, 9:06 (137), 8:47 (144), 8:39 (146), 8:33 (147) and 8:34 (146).  Then tried to hit low 7s but didn't make it:  7:44 (160), 7:31 (166), 7:37 (170), 7:36 (176) and 7:30 (179), max 181 bpm.  I should run at this heart rate more often, but I'm a little bit afraid of it.  Anyway, those numbers show an overall raw time of 8:44 for the slow miles and 7:36 for the fast miles.  But the Garmin 210 measured the course at 9.74 miles, so correcting for actual distance gives me 13 seconds per mile better, 8:31/7:23, still slower than Monday but not too bad, and my heart rate was higher today.  Interesting how much fatigue was left in my legs from yesterday.  They didn't feel any more tired and turnover seemed about the same, but the stride length actually felt shorter.  I think it is good to run fast miles on tired legs, but it feels funny, or at least unfamiliar.

I have a 10-mile race on Saturday.  I was hoping to run it at 7 flat, but it will be at least as warm as this morning and I don't think I will get close to that.  Today's speed felt pretty much maxed out, would have been lucky to hold it for 10, and I am not going to taper for Saturday.

70F, 97% and calm.  Almost didn't run the fast miles today, I've been reading too much commentary about resting, and the temperature is back up again.  But there will be time to rest later.  I asked myself if it would do any harm and the answer was no, so I took off at 5 miles on schedule, ran them at 7:25.  The sober truth is that this is not MP, which is irritating.  However, even though I didn't hold a steady pace I did hold pace throughout, and after rolling and stretching I feel OK so far.  I will run slow tomorrow, then run a 10-mile race on Saturday in the heat.  I think February was the last time I raced under 70F (just looked it up, it was March 3).

70F, 100% and calm.  Ran 10 for Texas this morning, a big fall kickoff race held every year in the Woodlands.  They cut the entries at 2500, so it isn't huge but it attracts some of the faster runners in the area, including in my age group.  I had so much trouble hitting GMP this week that I wasn't sure what to expect, especially with the heat.  I went back and checked, and except for Thursday (also 70F) this was the warmest morning of the month.  We are cooling off tomorrow and I don't expect it to get back up this high, so it was a good test of my summer slogging.  I figured even if I couldn't run fast I could still place well, and I decided not to run yesterday because I had been hitting it hard every day and my legs needed rest anyway, so a good excuse for a mini-taper. 

Wade is out of town, but his brother and sister-in-law came to my house with a friend, and Linda came also, making 5 of us.  We left my house at 6:00 (I woke up at 3:45 like a kid at Christmas, pretty irritating), arriving about 45 minutes before the race at 7:30, by which time it had hit 70F.  We stood in the PoP line, not because we needed to but because they are lighted and they have soap, running wash-basin water and flowers.  Thoroughly sanitized at the start line, the race started right on time.  Some high school choir sang the national anthem, then almost got run over when the horn sounded on the last note.  (I didn't feel bad for them, they chickened out and didn't go for the last high C, no sense of adventure in that group.)  I eased in with the 7-8 minute group and met some runners from my Y group, one of them has a 3:17 marathon and the other a 3:30.  I started out easy and my Y group friends took off ran the first mile in 6:40.  In the first two miles my legs felt strong (glycogen re-charge after taking a day off) and the pace felt easy, 7:06 (167) and 6:57 (176).  I felt sky-high and somewhat emotional, even though I knew it would be a suffer-fest, was just really grateful to be racing hard today.  My heart rate was very high, but  I decided to go with it and see what happened. 

After two miles I passed all my Y buddies and never saw them again.  Also found The Old Man in the Short Shorts and passed him at mile 3, did not want to see him again, apparently he has only one pair, possibly he has been wearing them continuously since last time. 

The rest of the race went as follows:  7:06 (176), 7:16 (177), 7:11 (179), 6:59 (182) (my typical mile 6 respite, I knew it wouldn't last), 7:10 (183), 7:19 (182), 7:15 (182) and 7:24 (184), maxHR 186.  I faded in the heat, but not disastrously.  Final time was 1:11:58, 7:10 per mile according to my Garmin, probably more like 7:12 per mile.  I ran behind a group most of the way until they faded, only to get overtaken on the last quarter by a different but similar-sized group. When I left the scene the computer had me at 2nd in my age group, 45th male, but there were a lot of runners whose times weren't reading, including a 55-year old whose Garmin showed 18 seconds faster than me (I never saw him out there, kind of strange). 

So I don't know what my final placement will be, but not important.  I confirmed to myself that I am still in good shape, that tapers work, and that I can sustain a pretty high heart rate, at least in the heat.  Some extra confidence as I finish the training cycle for the Richmond Marathon in 4 weeks.