I love running

4.89 @ John (8:59, 8:30, 8:25, 8:22, 8:33)

Pretty warm run and humid again of course.  What I thought was uncharged Garmin turned out to be a Garmin that wasnt responding to anything including plugging into the computer.  Got home and called the support line.. he walked me through a hard reset by holding Lap Reset and the power button and viola.. it came back to life.  Odd.. hopefully not a thing of future things to come with the product.

Was good running with John.. it had been probably close to 2 months since we had been able to get our schedules together and plan something.

Unable to ice afterwards but will hit the foam roller very shortly here at the house 

8 (warmup, 2x 3 miles, cooldown)

Warmup mile (9:04)

1x 3 miles (8:46, 8:10, 8:03)

2x 3 miles (7:48, 7:52, 7:45)

Cooldown mile (8:25)

The storm cooled down the temperature quite a bit.. probably low to mid 80's degrees.. humidity rather high still.

Felt great. 

17 (8:25, 7:48, 8:05, 7:59, 8:08, 8:09, 8:14, 8:18, 8:25, 8:19, 8:20, 8:34, 8:46, 9:01, 9:18, 9:54, 9:41)

Nice positive split long run.  lol.  Felt like a$$ for the second half of that run.  No real aches or pains.. my body simply hit the wall and didnt feel like running.  If they all came easy then  I guess I wouldnt be so challenged by the sport.  

Might need to start thinking about using gu's now that these runs are creeping up there distance wise.  Regardless.. the miles are in the bank.  

Myself and a handful of others are totally the slowest on the team by far.. but quite a few team mates are injured with stress fractures, knee issues, IT bands, etc and many have decided to either move downwards or have been demoted by the coaches to a slower team.

onwards

Crash 

7 @ recovery (9:42, 9:14, 9:29, 9:38, 9:29, 9:49, 9:56)

middle of the day suck the life right out of you run.  Legs felt pretty good.

ending mileage for the week = 50.95  a good comeback week after the super reduction of next to nothing miles from the previous week.  Going to run close to full fledged miles with reduced intensity this week. 

Monday - 5 miles easy with Drills and Strides

Tuesday - 10 miles - glycogen depletion - take on no carbs during the run - water only. Start easy for the 1st 5 miles then get progressively faster for the next 5 - no faster than marathon pace. At the finish of the run get your recovery fuel in ASAP (sports drink with electrolytes & carbs)

Wednesday - 6 miles recovery

Thursday - 10 mile hilly run. Pick a course that rolls...3 mile warm-up..then for the next 5 miles alternate MP pace over the hills - i.e. - run pace for 10 minutes recover for 2 minutes...so that you are going MP up/down the hills...final 2 miles recover

Friday - off

Saturday - 16 miles

Sunday - 8 miles

Total for the up comingweek = 55

Tonights 5 @ easy (8:54, 8:18, 8:24, 8:09, 7:48)  felt super fresh 

Glycogen Depletion run.

10 (9:03, 8:53, 8:47, 8:33, 8:15, 8:xx, 7:35, 7:41, 7:29, 7:19)

The garmin took a crap during mile 6.. it says I ran a 10:35 mile.. lol.. not sure what was going on with that?  Unless there was some sort of time warp that I wasnt aware of.. im 100 percent positive I posted right at a 8:00 flat for that mile.  My ipod took a poo as well.  Time to hit Costco for a new shuffle.

Rock solid run 

6 easy (8:13, 8:17, 8:28, 7:47, 8:53, 8:56)

Was getting too hard so cooled my jets for mile 5 & 6.  Felt great. 

So oddly after I got home from my Wednesday nights run.. I thought I had something stuck in my right shoe.  Upon further review.. my right 4th toe had a rather large blister to the right of the toe nail.  Wth??  where in the world did that come from??  I didnt even notice it during Wednesdays recovery run.  This thing was large!!!  I proceeded to drain the fluid and bandage it up but then didnt like the way the bandage felt between my toes so I said "ef" it and ripped it off.  Now onwards to even further gross out "both" of my blog readers.. lol.. my feet have been peeling non stop for weeks now.. not real sure where that is coming from either.. its pretty gross.. im able to peel long long strips of saggy skin off at will.. and the combination of new skin with old skin has made the bottom of my feet rather bumpy.. they feel like sandpaper.  So if you need some wood sanded then feel free to hire the bottom of my feet.  good rates apply :-)

So as im lacing up to head out to Thursday's HMT yasso session. I notice another toe blister on my left foot.  really??  How can I not notice these things??  Anyways.. giving the tenderness on both feet.. I decided to skip the yassos all together and simply go for the pick your own time mile.  The kids were super excited to participate!!!  We get to Godwin and sadly there is only 1 HMT'er there.  I made the decision to cancel the PYT and just do a little challenge between Emma and myself.

Emma runs her mile and is only 4 seconds off her predicated race time.  Damn thats pretty good!!!  Now its dad's turn.. im thinking to myself.. wow 4 seconds is going to be hard to beat.  My predicted time was 8:00 flat and posted 7:24 :-(  Not even close.  Emma destroyed me.

So this goes to show me that kids run via feel and im a total bitch to my garmin.  Maybe I need to revisit my "out of shape" training days where I never ran with a garmin at all.  Knock on wood.. what would happen if my Garmin decided to die on the starting line in NYC??  What would I do??  Wing it right.  Sadly if I would have started a marathon and then proceeded to run 36 seconds per faster than my goal pace then I would have surely died a harsh and painful death on the course.  I need to be able nail my MP no questions asked anytime of the day without even thinking about it.  I have some work to do.

So the feet are feeling somewhat better today.. it was probably a good decision to skip the workout and I fully plan on running the entire 16 miles on Saturday with all black.  Im going to body glide the toes, eat a small breakfast beforehand, carry gatorade and gu doing the run.

This season has certainly had some aches and pains and bumps in the road but im still doing things correctly and im still having fun.. as long as those two things stay in the mix.. then I guess im doing well.

onwards

 Crash

All Black 16.5 

Felt much better this week vs last week..  Started a bit quick with early miles but settled into an easy pace.  Storms came through bright and early before the run.. wasnt sure if we were going to get it in or not.  Humid as normal.

Forgot to restart Garmin leaving one of the sags.

Splits (8:28, 7:57, 7:38, 7:48, 8:05, 8:05, 8:16, 8:37, 8:30, 8:49, 8:34, 8:30, 8:47, 8:26, 9:01, 9:02)

Slim pickings in the back of the pack All Black.. ran with a group of 3 other people which was nice.  Sadly im one of the few slow ones still running with black.

Once the humidity breaks.. I will start running the long runs a bit quicker.. right at sub 8 but right now I like my pacing on these runs.  There are lots of heros who think they are badasses and run too fast in July & August only to blow up on race day.  I continue to stick by my goal of getting to the start line healthy.  If that means plodding along during these humid runs then so be it.

9 recovery (1 400M @ 5k pace) + 1 1600M @ tempo

felt great

(9:21, 9:17, 9:20, 8:13, 9:05, 9:57, 9:51, 9:18, 9:07, 6:52)

Total for the week = 50.2 

5 recovery slash into easy (9:11, 9:00, 9:08, 7:37, 8:08)

non eventful time on feet run.  felt good

Glycogen Depletion Run - 12 miler w/ water only between sets

1x 5 (8:57, 8:45, 8:48, 8:48, 8:41)

2x 5 (8:12, 7:53, 7:35, 7:43, 7:29)

2@ easy (8:43, 7:45)

12 miles on Tuesday equals welcome to Marathon season :-) 

6 recovery (8:42, 8:33, 8:45, 8:58, 8:40, 8:40)

Another one of my team mates sadly went the way of the dreaded stress fracture :-(  I remember on day one looking around at the 50+ people and wondered if I belonged??

Fast forward nearing the end of August now and the field has been pretty much reduced in half.  Stress fractures, surgeries, IT issues, demotions, voluntarily pull backs to orange team and even a move to the west coast has occurred for this team.  I think in order to successfully operate on this team you have to be in constant adaptation mode.  That means listening to your body and adjusting workouts accordingly.  You CANNOT be afraid to shut it down and turn a tempo'd run into a recovery run.  If your body isnt feeling it then forcing it is the worst thing in the world.  

For the most part.. im almost always running in the back of the pack but thats ok.. I know the race cant be won this early on in training but it surely can be lost.  If you let your ego get the best of you then rest assured your chances of getting injured sky rocket.  

One of the sub 3 guys (who routinely runs 8+ minute miles) summed it the best in saying "There sure are a lot of hero's in July and August on this team".  Im not sure if im the slowest on the team or not??  Frankly.. I dont really care.. I do know that im putting in some high quality work and im still standing and feeling pretty damn good.  I think that answers my question from day 1.  I do belong.

48x 400 -  executed about as good as I could possibly ever hope for :-)

(8:41, 8:32, 8:34, 8:30, 8:29, 8:15, 8:03, 7:48, 7:37, 7:29, 7:27, 6:44)

Very pleased with the results.. this run came super easy!!!  Especially good considering this was the final run in a 6 day stretch which totaled 62.24 miles.  Normally im pretty flat on Thursday's.  A sign of great things to come.

Complete rest day tomorrow and then 16 miles on Saturday.

Training really ramps up from here.. most Tuesday and Thursdays will be 12 miles each and Saturdays should start alternating between 16 and 20 milers. 

All Black 16 (8:21, 7:54, 7:53, 8:12, 8:11, 8:12, 8:04, 7:49, 7:43, 7:43, 8:05, 8:29, 8:01, 7:37, 7:41, 8:18)

Lots of loops to avoid something occurring downtown.. people running in all different directions.. pretty crazy.  They had a little Texas hold em poker type game.. where you picked up a two cards from the various sag's.  I sadly drew a 5 of clubs and 3 of hearts.  Got to the end and showed my sweaty cards to Garber.. he laughed and said "you need at least two pair to get on your name on the board".  I could have gone for the straight right??  Lame game but hey.. guess they want to spice things up a bit.

Rock solid run.  I think my training is starting to turn the corner into a higher fitness level.  We will see.

Crash 

Recovery (9:28, 9:25, 9:32, 9:28, 9:20, 9:17, 9:22, 9:20, 9:10, 8:59)

felt great.  Decent even paced splits.

Total miles for week ending Sunday = 62.35

Just got email from Ruthie.. the next 2 weeks are reduced mileage weeks.. a calm before the storm we shall say. 

5 recovery (9:02, 8:51, 9:00, 9:07, 8:57)

non eventful 

Lots of time on feet / easy / recovery runs for the next 2 weeks.  Going to take full advantage of the two rest up weeks.  I have a feeling I will need this coming down the stretch.  Will drop some quick splits here and there to remind the legs they know how to run fast.  Mile 4 came rather easy.

10 (8:22, 8:42, 8:58, 6:08, 9:25, 8:59, 8:57, 8:50, 8:35, 8:09) 

6 time on feet (8:39, 8:55, 8:42, 8:52, 8:47, 8:22)

was shooting for 9 minute pace but couldnt quite make myself run that slow.  Legs felt pretty fresh.

onwards 

5 working downwards to tempo (7:44, 7:16, 7:01, 6:46, 6:30) + 1 cooldown 9:16

The run came rather easy.. I think in getting into pretty decent shape. 

Post PH spur of the moment run with John.  The quickness that we were able to get away from PH allowed this run to be squeezed in nicely.

We ended up being totally soaked but John's company certainly made the run awesome.

8 (9:34, 9:17, 9:18, 9:19, 9:15, 8:52, 8:44, 8:22)  Nicely paced negative splitting into the latter miles.

14 time on feet (9;16, 8:35, 8:32, 8:31, 8:32, 8:29, 8:46, 8:47, 8:25, 8:35, 8:09, 8:18, 8:32, 8:08)

Had a odd shooting pain in the left ankle about mile 5.5  Went away after a couple of hundred yards.  Guess im getting old.  Tried a Citrus Orange AccelaGel at mile 9 and that was the worst thing ive EVER tasted.  How can chocolate from the same maker be so good but the orange be so bad?  Anyways.. it was a freebie I picked up from SB.  I wont be grabbing anymore of those.  Stay clear of that flavor.

So I was running down Castile and passed a lady wearing a confederate flag tshirt, smoking a cigarette while walking a dachshund and the dog was wearing a red Run DMC tshirt".  Not something you see every day.

Hey thats a new idea for blog data.. "things seen while out running".  Entry number 1 in the books :-) 

Super humid run.. resisted the urge to run much faster.. felt good.

Mile for week ending today = 50.19 

Crash 

Failed to charge Garmin so had to run with phone.

6 time on feet (8:54, 8:39, 8:40, 8:33, 8:00, 7:20)

Totally trying to figure out when the humidity will subside.  I do like the temperature warm but the humidity is starting to irritate me.  Finishing every run soaking wet stinks.

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball.  Tonights 10 miler turned into a 7 miler.  Brody selected Cheeburger Cheeburger for his birthday dinner and dad had too many onion rings.  Poor decision on my part but oh well.. I will have to make up the 3 miles elsewhere during the week.  Life goes on.

7 Time on feet (8:49, 8:50, 9:08, 8:59, 8:53, 8:30, 8:32) 

10 Time on feet (8:39, 8:16, 8:13, 8:12, 8:12, 8:34, 8:34, 8:38, 8:32, 7:57)

89 degree and sunny workout.  Humidity wasnt as high as normal which was nice.

Was feeling great and totally fought the urge to take off and run hard.  I constantly reminded myself that I dont normally put in a 10 miler on Wednesday...  add that to a week thats supposed to be easier than normal and I did the right thing in shutting it down for the latter miles.

Its very difficult to describe in words but almost all my training runs are feeling what I like to call "automatic".  Kinda like I could be running along and almost close my eyes and not have to worry about what im doing.  Its kinda like the body automatically knows what to do and does it.  I guess the power of repetition has kicked in with full effect.  Ive only felt this way once before and that was back in 2010 when I was in really good shape.  All great signs.  Now I can see 20 milers in my near future.. lots of them.  At least 5.. may 7.  We will see how the body holds up.

Crash 

6 time on feet (8:50, 8:40, 8:49, 8:48, 8:50, 8:21)

late start tonight due to the All Black fantasy football draft.. an hour and half of smack talking / football picking / busting on one another which resulted in Scott calling Peter a pu$$y on a FB comment.  lol.

I was lucky to have the first overall pick and decided to go with Baltimore's Ray Rice.  I foresee many a points to be racked up there.  I like my team a lot.. I failed to get the quarter back I wanted but I still got Philip Rivers, Big Ben and wait for it.. wait for it.. wait for it.. Tim Tebow!!!  Hellz to the yes!!! they might as well just give me all the prize money now :-)  Hopefully im better at making football picks than I am with golf picks.  This one is for real live cash money though!!!  Cha Ching!!  Show me the money!!

The run was great.

Crash