Getting back to Boston

Started off the new year with a progression run, modifying an old course slightly. Up Burnham to Free Ferry, west to Rogers, down Rogers under the freeway to 66th, up 66th to FF, and back home. Comes out to just under 7. Hudson called for a 7 miler with a one-mile progression this week, so that's almost what I did. The progression was about 1.3 though; not quite to MP, but down in the mid-8s. This sucker was one hilly route, so I think I got more value than just a routine 7. Leg was a little bothersome early; later just sore glutes from the hills.

It occurred to me that I would like to average about 7 miles a day all year, so this is a good start. That would get me over 2500 again, maybe 2600. Now if I can get my sleeping pattern straightened out...

Nine today -- once around the golf course, three loops around the tennis courts. Picked it up some on the last loop, but not sure it would qualify as much of a progression run. Anyway, finished the week with 41 on six runs. Feel like I'm starting to get into the swing of training with 15 weeks to go.

Looking back at the Garmin data, the last two miles were under 9:00, so I guess it was a progression. Leg took a little longer to loosen than I would like, about 5 miles, but it eventually did quit hurting.

Lack of sleep finally caught up with me. I slept until almost 11, with Max as my sleeping buddy

This was supposed to be an easy run, but I wanted to get it over with, so I ran sub-9 pace. Which makes it moderate, I guess. Leg acted up most of the day but wasn't too much of an issue once I got going. Three laps around the mall in all. Shower, drive to Bryant, catch the plane in the AM, and witness a Buckeye roast tomorrow night.

I seem to be handling the bumped-up mileage pretty well -- so far. We'll see what happens when I get over 50, like next week.

This was supposed to be 6 easy miles with a 1-mile progression at the end. Didn't work out that way. I headed over to SHS after dark to see if the track was accessible. It was, and well-lit enough that I didn't need the headlamp I brought along. I headed out at what seemed like a moderate pace; looked at the watch and it was barely over 8:00. Decided to go with that for the first two miles, running 8:13 and 8:16 (and because the Garmin was measuring a bit short, might have been going even faster). Backed it off just a tad for the next four miles, but still nothing above 8:27. Then put the hammer down for the last mile: 7:50. Then walk/jogged two miles for a cooldown.

Overall average, even with the cooldown, of 8:19. and like I said, that was probably. Since I know exactly how far I went (30 laps of a 400-meter track), I can definitely say that I went 7.45. I used the Garmin for 29.25 laps,  which is 7.27 miles, and the Garmin says I went 7.20. So, the usual 1% Garmin error -- short, this time.

Very pleased with this run. Leg largely behaved, which is a lot better than it did in New Orleans and Dallas the last two days. Wasn't running against any ineligible players, either (grrr). Cheatin Ohio bastiges...

Easy 10K around the tennis court loop at 9:00 pace, then went over to run 10 Hudson hills adjacent to the golf course. First run in the Green Silences. Run went well; left leg acted up, feet did fine, although I've been feeling some plantar twinges lately which persisted tonight, nothing new and no blisters. Otherwise, no issues, and sprints felt faster in the GS.

Was supposed to do 7.5 tonight with 1.5 at HMP. Nope. Not. Happening. Leg hurt bad, had no energy, and to make it worse, stepped in a hole and felt like I tweaked my hip. How I didn't do a face plant when I stepped in that hole, I have no idea. But I just thought shutting it down was the intelligent thing to do. Come back and try again tomorrow. Or Monday. Or whenever. Even after 10 hours sleep, still had no energy.

Snow returns to Arkansas today. Already about an inch when I drove home, still coming down when I ran two hours later. Weather wasn't much of an issue; it was only mid-20s and the white stuff kept drivers inside so I could run on the road for the most part. The damn leg was the issue. It finally loosened up in the last two miles, but that just got it down to a dull ache. Before that, it REALLY hurt. Miserable. But I HTFU and got it done anyway. We'll see what the weather allows tomorrow. Might be time to slide down to Harbortown and use the dreadmill.

Basically a 10K in the snow. Hobbled the first three miles in 10+ pace. After some stretching, found it felt better to run faster, and ran the last 3.2 in 8:41 pace. I'm supposed to do 12 tomorrow with 2 at GMP. Don't know if that's going to work. They're gonna have to open up Ben Geren, for one thing; I ain't running the hills around here, nor am I going to run 8 laps around the mall. Got the run in, though. Now to decide if I'm gonna watch the BCS game (remember, the C is silent).

Thirteen miles of slog today in just over 2 hours. Temp about 25, wind same. Which meant I spent about six miles running dead into it. Tried to run 2 at GMP; might have managed 1.25. Might being the key word. I can definitely tell that I've missed a bunch of training because of the AT and the sciatica. I now have 96 days to correct that. But today's a good step toward doing just that.

Intervals on the dreadmill at Harbortown today. I was going by there to sign my new lease, so thought I'd kill two birds and get a workout in. Bad move. Until that place gets some kind of fan, or I bring my own, horrible place to run. Turned the AC on at 60 degrees, no help; still felt like I was running in a sauna. And the weather outside was not bad -- below freezing, but sunny and little wind. Running in track pants at SHS would have been fine. Note for next time... Also did a little upper body work, just to say I did, a few butterflys.

Anyway, the plan was 6 X 800 at 5K pace with 400 jog intervals, warm up/cool down 1.5 miles, total of 7.25. Pulled it off, except most of my intervals were walked. I chalk that up to the lack of air flow in that room. I was frankly surprised at how well my legs handled it. I'm having more discomfort now sitting here than I did running. Cardiovascular discomfort, and heat stress, yeah. But the legs handled it OK. My 5K pace is what I would like it to be, about 6:58. I probably would have done that if Iron Pig had actually been 5K instead of 2.76 (I averaged 6:50 for the 2.76). But it wasn't.

Easy run at Ben Geren with strides and drills tacked on the end. Wound up at 8.04, four strides, dipsy-doos, high knees, and buttkicks. Wasn't a great run, didn't need to be. Leg acted up more than I'd like, but got through it. Evidently the leg will have good days and bad. I just have to hope the bad days become less frequent as well as less severe. Already done 34 miles since Monday; this should wind up as a 50-plus week.

Also volunteered myself to set up an FE at an Italian restaurant in Boston the night before the race. Already have three attendees (counting me). I'll try and drum up some more later if I don't get more inquiries. Just wanted to get our foot in the door. There will be other forumites there at 6, my group arrives at 7.

Progression run tonight at Cross Park, 12 laps around the lake. Seven laps, 4.00 miles, moderate effort. Hard progression for four laps (2.29 miles) -- 8:31, 8:19, 8:20, and the11th lap at 7:50, just about GMP. Then jogged a lap to cool down. Probably the toughest progression run I've done in a while. Considering I didn't sleep worth a darn last night and worked 11 hours today -- plus was fighting nausea for a while -- I'm quite pleased with it.

Plan either tempo intervals or an easy run tomorrow night, and the other one on Sunday to complete what would be about a 55-mile week. And, best of all, the leg was virtually no issue at all. It's yapping at me right now, but didn't act up during the run at all, and very little during the day. I wish I knew what I could do to have more days like today, other than sit a lot and stand up as little as possible.

Pure recovery run tonight. No progression, no nothing. Got a tiny bit faster as the leg pain resolved, but that's all. Did 6.20 after work, which was kinda dumb in that I didn't wear lights or reflectors or nuthin', but no major close calls. That puts me over 50 miles for the calendar week, which is the first in quite a while. I'll have to dig out the old log to find out how long. May well be since before Memphis, which would be 14 months or more. (Addendum: It was mid-April, so nine months back. Still, it's been a while -- and I took a day off that week.)

Intervals at Ben Geren. Warmup, 1.5 miles at what was supposed to be 10K pace, 1 mile interval, another 1.5 at 10K, then 2ish cooldown. Total of six laps of the trail, or 7.67. Ran the reps at 7:43 and 7:31 pace, which is almost what I wanted. Can't complain too much, though; it was hard enough just to run that fast. First tempo intervals of the cycle; hopefully it gets better from here.

Total for the week: 55 plus. First 50-plus since April. Not sure how long it's been since I did 55.

Six miles plus strides at SHS. Didn't know if I was going to run. Went to Fayetteville today to see T, got back here and immediately took a nap, still felt groggy when I woke up, but decided to go try it. Run got me going, I was able to run low-9 pace and it felt pretty easy, then I ran strides for the last two laps. Totaled 10K plus about 100 yards back to the car; the Garmin read just 6.22, meaning 10K, so it was about 1% low again.

Trying to decide whether to add a longish run tomorrow or just stick to the script for this week which assumed I'd be working. See how I feel, I guess. I've done pretty well running 12 straight days, so I may skip the day off for a few days.

Decided to take advantage of the day off and get in a long run. So I devised a loop that I could do once for an 8-miler, twice for a 14-miler, and didn't seem horribly hilly. Some hills, but not like, say Oucho's. Or so I thought. By the end of the second loop, it seemed every bit the equal of Oucho's.

Left the Casa, went down Waldron to Rogers. Then the loop started: Continue south on Waldron, work around past Hardscrabble and Southside, up Old Greenwood to Rogers, down Rogers back to Waldron. Then repeat. After the second loop, went up Waldron to Free Ferry and returned home that way to push the mileage up over 14. I did a pretty good job of maintaining the pace through most of the run, but the last two miles the legs were dead. Even then, I kept the pace in the 9:30s, which is darn good considering how little energy I had left. Definitely an HTFU run. Overall average pace: 9:20.

Exactly three months until Boston. All I have to say is, I'm glad Boston's not in March. I'm gonna need just about all of those 90 days to get ready.

Ice bath afterward. That may have hurt as much as the 14...

Recovery fish tonight. Still quite sore, not much sleep, 13 hours at work today. It was a struggle, to put it mildly. Got through it, though. We'll see what the weather does tomorrow before I decide whether to take the SRD. Might need to save that for next week with the trip to Branson with Mumb and Pupe. See how work goes, too.

Ladder intervals after work, in the dark, at the SHS track. Get there to discover that quite a bit of the track is still covered in snow -- and that, worse, some of the snow melted and refroze. Slipped enough on the warmup laps that I wasn't sure it was safe to run intervals, but decided to try. Plan was 1 mile - 1K - 800 - 400 - 400 - 800 - 1K - 1 mile, with the miles at 10K pace and the 400s at 3K pace. Didn't quite work that way. The miles ended up being at MP, and the second 800 and 1K were reversed because I lost count of the laps on the 800 and ended up running 1K (it's bad when you can't count to two and can't remember where the heck I started). But I got it all done. Mile paces were 8:07/7:53, 1K were 7:30/7:30 (amazingly), 800s were 7:05/7:37, and 400s were 6:16/6:32. With warmup, cool and 200 jog intervals, total of 8.76. Still some slipping in the intervals, but didn't pull anything or wipe out.

Recovery run at SHS. Took about three miles to loosen up after last night's ladders. After that, was able to run a decent pace, got down to 8:30s for the last mile. I probably shouldn't have run that fast, but I didn't want to spend all freakin' night out there after working 12 hours -- so I sped up to save a whole six minutes. Woo hoo! Got it done, anyway. Tomorrow, eight miles including 2 X 2 at 10K pace. Let's see if I can do that -- and if the weather permits it.

Ended up doing my tempo intervals, but I tweaked them. Instead of 2 x 2 miles, I did 3 x 1 mile at 10K pace -- well, two of them were at 10K pace. Intervals at 7:54, which is basically MP, then 7:24 and 7:28 (more like it). With warmup, interval jog and cooldown, did 7.41, which put me just short of 50 for the week. Could have done one more lap, but why bother?

Also probably could have done one more interval -- maybe. With 12 weeks to go, why push it too far and set myself back? I pushed it quite a bit just to do what I did tonight, as heavy as my legs felt last night. Sciatica, which had gone away for a few days, made a bit of a reappearance, which may explain why the first interval was slower. Went away probably during the first recovery jog.

Off to Branson tomorrow. Tyler changed classes and now has a night class on Tuesdays, so we can't go to the Auburn game. Probably OK, saves me $50 and a bunch of driving. I can probably listen to game on the radio (or why bother?)

Combo run at the condo overlooking Table Rock Lake. Ran to the fitness center, which is only about 250 yards from here, then hit the treadmill for an hour. Started at 6.3 mph, gradually bumped it up, then did 1.2 miles at GMP before a three-minute cooldown. After running back to the condo, total was 7.15. GMP felt pretty comfortable on the TM, so that's a good sign. Cranked up the overhead fan, but it was still pretty sweaty.

This place is plush. Our condo is a five bedroom patio home. Upstairs, where you come in, has three bedrooms, two full baths, a big living area, an open, huge kitchen and a laundry area. Downstairs has two more bedrooms, including another master and a kids' room with bunk beds, a pool table, another living area and a THEATER. Yes, I said theater. Seats 10-12 in reclining seats, overhead projector onto big wall screen, you can watch TV or DVDs or plug in your PlayStation and play that on the big screen, or plug in an iPod and listen to music through the sound system. Lights dim themselves when you crank up the projector. Rest of the place has big flatscreens everywhere. I figure there's more $ worth of TVs in this place than I have earthly possessions. No wonder Pupe's using a whole week's worth of timeshare points for three nights in this place. You could do a family reunion in this thing no trouble.

The fitness center, by the way, takes up the bottom of a similar place up the hill. Plenty of equipment, maybe too much; it feels a bit cramped. I had the area to myself last night. Could do a 13 with an interruption, since the TM has an hour limit, but I don't know if I can get psyched for two hours in there. Think I'll just do intervals in there tomorrow and do a long run in FS Thursday.

Scott had bunion surgery yesterday, so he's pretty hobbled. Cast, crutches, etc. He won't be going downstairs, that's for sure. I think he came up here to get out of Tammy's hair for a few days.

Got up this morning and scouted out the area. There is NOTHING remotely flat around here. But Pupe told me there were trails over at Big Cedar, and I figured at least those shouldn't be too horribly mountainous. Which was true as far as that goes, but they definitely are very hilly. I found a trail marked "5K Run" and decided to follow it. Went all the way to the end, which was more than 2 miles, so I don't think there's anything 5K about it. Wound up running 4.55.

I think I may do a double today. After I got back to the condo, found an actual map of the property showing the trail. I had run most of it, but not all. I could go back and do all of it, or just do the two-mile out and back again. That would give me a 9-mile plus day. Then do intervals on the treadmill at the fitness center tomorrow before I go back.

Update: Double done. Did 5.3 on the treadmill, plus the .3 to and from the fitness center. Total of 10-plus for the day. Not an overly strenuous day for a double-digit double. Still working on that enormous basket of crab legs, sausage and shrimp I had at Joe's on the river this afternoon, so this burned off some of those calories.

Intervals at SHS. Was supposed to be 6 X 800 at 5K pace. Well, it was 4 X 800 and 4 X 400 and something like 5K+15 pace. Struggled to maintain even that pace. No snap in the legs at all, but got through it when I wanted to take it in. Total run about 7.25 including warm, cool and recovery.

I cannot believe it is 70 freakin' degrees in January. Bleah. Got out on Phoenix for a recovery out and back. Legs were very tight for the first two miles, and the sciatica was actin' up a bit. Things slowly loosened up as I went, and for the last mile I even felt up to running at GMP without too much undue stress.

Looking at 15 either tomorrow or Sunday, and another slow run the other day. It's supposed to be unseasonably warm into Sunday, so if I'm gonna do a 15-miler, better start early before it gets too warm.

Planned to do 14 this morning. Couldn't quite get there. Well, I guess I could, but the feeling I got was that to get there would do more harm than good. So I bagged it after 10+. Maybe I'll go out this evening for a double to get the miles I missed.

Well, I did go out for the double at 9:30, after watching the Hogs clobber Vandy at Memorial Gym. Nice, nice win. Boosted my spirits for certain. Anyway, still pretty stiff from this morning, and figured I needed to work out some kinks before trying to go to bed. As usual, started off pretty slow, got faster as I loosened up. Wound up with 5.76 at a 9:28 average. Total for the day, 16.11 in 2:37:39, a 9:47 average. Would have liked to have gone a bit faster, but right now I just need miles at any speed, I think.

This puts me up to 47 miles for the week despite skipping Wednesday. And I don't know that I've ever done doubles twice in a week; I have this week. Probably aim for 8 tomorrow for a 55-mile week. Maybe even get in some MP miles if the legs permit. That will also give me a 200-mile month (may already be there after tonight; not quite sure). Haven't had one of those in a while.

More uncharted territory today. Ran a few streets I've never seen before, working myway through 8.3 to finish off a 55-mile week. Down Burnham to Rogers to 58th, up 58th to Cliff, around past SHS to Old Greenwood, down to Country Club. Right on Country Club, worked my way around the north side of Hardscrabble to Valley, back to Burnham, back up to Free Ferry, under the freeway, right on 62nd, left on Gordon, down a street whose name I don't know, out on Rogers by Hooters, and back home.

Legs felt like lead, as I thought they would. But I also figured I needed to get some miles in now in case the snow and ice wipe out a good bit of next week's training. Get in 6 or so tomorrow and it'll be a 215-mile month.

Easy 6 at Ben Geren (well, maybe moderate), followed by strides in the parking lot. The Garmin quit in mid-first lap, but pace felt moderate and I finished somewhere in the 55-56 minute range, which would be a moderate pace. Then six 100-yard strides (more or less) for a total of 0.32. Finished the month with 215 miles. Legs felt pretty good considering the high mileage recently. Then I put screws in the Nikes so I'll be ready to run in the slickness tomorrow and/or Wednesday.