Getting back to Boston

After three days off -- two for physical exhaustion, one for domestic turmoil -- back in the saddle tonight. Legs felt good after all that rest, so decided to try a good tempo run. Warmed up for 20 minutes, then decided to do 30 minutes of tempo, mainly by feel -- not check pace on the Garmin, just run. As usual on such runs, my pace was a tad erratic. First mile was 7:48, then 7:31, then 7:40, then the last seven minutes cover 0.95 miles, a 7:24 pace. Thus 3.95 in 30:00, a 7:35 pace overall. If I can run 7:35 avberage in Bentonville, I'll be more than pleased. I'll also be well under 1:40.

Easy run around JBH tonight. Legs still a bit stiff after last night's hard tempo run. so no temptation to crank it up. They loosened up some, but still never got below a 9:00 pace even with the downhill on the way home. Just a solid, routine run.

Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of my first marathon, and of Adam Nichol's death. Learned only yesterday that the winners' wreaths given to Leah and to the men's winner last year were made by Adam's mom. I thought that was really nice on her part. She could have blamed Little Rock for her son's death, but she didn't go there. And how things have changed. Struggled to finish in less than five hours then. Blasted four miles in 30 minutes last night with plenty left, and have a BQ to boot. Oh, and I'm probably 25 pounds lighter too. Weighed this afternoon in the office after everyone left; got down to skivvies and socks to do it. Weight 154. I want to take off 5-8 pounds in the next 13 months before Boston. I suspect I will, if I do the kind of mileage I expect to do.

Interval time tonight. Turned out I ran them at 10K pace or better, which is a little faster than I intended. However, I had teh good sense to listen to my GI tract and cut off the last planned rep-plus, which probably kept me from being REALLY sore tomorrow (we'll see if that's wishful thinking).

Warmed up for 2, stretched a bit, then took off. First rep turned out to be 7:12 pace for one loop of the park (.79 miles). As usual for my nighttime tempo runs, it's too hard to track my pace on the Garmin, so I don't. Jogged for three minutes or so, then another rep: 7:15 pace. Another 3-minute jog, than rep 3: 7:15 again. Three more minutes, then rep 4: 7:14 until the bear intervened. Quickly determined the bear was not going away quickly and scrubbed the rest of the reps. I was able to finish the run at a slower pace, ending up with 8.34. If I'd done all five planned reps, it woulda been 9-ish. Good run, though, even with the bear.

Really slow tonight, and worked to keep it that way. Six laps of LBH. Took 58 minutes, which is just about what I wanted. Planning 12 tomorrow, which would give me 42 miles in five days of running this week. That would probably be a smarter way to train at my age -- two days of rest, five harder days -- but I'm not that smart yet. Or I'm too OCD for that yet.

Bleah. Really lousy run this morning. Legs felt bad, rest of me felt worse. Nauseated, etc. Wish I could have barfed and gotten it over with, but slogged it around. The original plan for 12 went by the wayside, but I may still get in another 6 later in the day if I feel better.

Very happy with today's run. Dawdled around and didn't leave for the trails until nearly 10, started around 10:15. Didn't have the Garmin again (but at least it turned on this morning; I was already looking for a replacement on eBay last night), but the new watch did what I needed given that the trail has distance markers. Felt like I started reallllllly sllooooowww, but it couldn't have been that slow. Before long I was clipping off 9:00 miles, and felt really comfortable doing it. Got a little confused on the outward section and ran an extra loop of maybe 0.1 mile, so I added about 30 seconds before the turnaround to make the inner and outward halves about equal.

The original plan was to run a comfortable pace for the first 9.5 or so and then pick it up for the last 20 minutes. Didn't work out that way. Felt so comfortable that I picked it up immediately on the turnaround. That last 6.05, according to the $9 Walmart watch, took 48:18. That, folks, is GMP for me. I was sucking wind pretty good for the last mile or so, but kept going at a pretty good clip. I'd bet I was well under GMP for the first five miles after the turnaround. Definitely a confidence builder for the half marathon in six days.

Runnin' in the rain tonight. Pam looked at me like I was crazy when I was getting ready. She's probably right. Wind blowing rain right into my face. My allegedly water-repellant pants aren't. Trail still doesn't drain worth a darn, even with all the undulations and a bridge over a creek (where the biggest puddle lies). Felt really reasy, but I averaged just over 9:00. Maybe I have reset my governor to where 9:00 is easy and 7:30ish is doable. I guess I may find that out Saturday morning. Little tempo run tomorrow night, thunderstorms permitting, then back it down for the rest of the week. Needed to run tonight anyway after last night's emotional trauma. This ain't getting any easier as the weeks go on, y'all.

Very encouraging tempo run tonight. If this holds up, I should be blastin' Saturday morning. Warmed up for a mile and a half, then set up at what I hoped would be slightly faster than HMP speed. Five laps around the park. First lap at 7:29 pace. Close to what I wanted, but felt pretty good, so picked it up a bit more. Second lap 7:18, although I didn't know that exactly. Decided to try to maintain that one. Slipped just a tad on lap 3, to 7:21, although didn't know that exactly either. Lap 4, picked it up to 7:18. It occurred to me that I might be threatening my 5K PR on a tempo run! Decided to let 'er rip on the last lap, and ran it at 7:11 pace, then added another tenth of a mile for good measure. Wound up with 29:52 for 4.09 miles at pace, a 7:17 average. And laps 2-5 combined, which were slightly more than a 5K, worked out to about 22:40 for the 5K, only 43 seconds over my PR. If I'd been running an all-out 5K tonight, I think I would have gotten the PR. Finished the entire 7 mile run, warmup and cooldown included, in 57 and change.

Noticed something weird last night, in looking at a VDOT chart, which I haven't done in a while. Every single one of my PR times, 5K through marathon, falls between 44 and 45 on the VDOT. I'd say I'm pretty consistent there. Now to find a way to get them all into the 46-47 range. That would be something like 21:20 for the 5K, 44:00 for the 10K, 1:37:30 for the half, and 3:22 for the marathon.

Four and a quarter. Very easy. Delayed by thunderstorm. About all that need be said.

Oh, finally remembered to go back and look up the results of the Freezing 5K. Turns out I finished 13th overall! No ages listed, but I betcha if there'd been AG awards, I'd have won one. No such luck, however. Figures. I finally win AG (maybe) and there's no AG to win.

Had to fight to stay awake all afternoon at work (partly lack of sleep, partly boredom, possibly partly due to sugar crash after cookies with lunch). Even took a nap when I got home, then got up at 7 to jog 3 miles. I'm feeling really confident about Saturday, which probably will come back to bite me. But I'll take a crack at a good time anyway.

One last easy jog to shake out the kinks before the rac. I'm on the h ill up to the park, and Brooks pulls up beside me. He was taking a shortcut through the park to Shiloh, apparently. Weird. Run was slow. Legs a little tight, but I can stretch tonight, Gonna head for the expo in  Bentonville soon, then to the pasta feed.

Score another one for the old man. I don't think I'm getting any (or much) faster, but I'm getting tougher.

Raw, blustery day on the Bentonville square, with occasional misting rain and more wind than I'd prefer. Took a warmup jog, but didn't stretch as much as I should. Race began, and I soon discovered what I needed to be stretching was the glutes. They just were not loosening up.

My goal was to put down 7:30 miles. Did that -- for one mile. Then 7:42, 7:26 (better), 7:36, 7:47, 7:41. Hit the 10K in 47:22, I think, which was so-so. Glutes still hurt. I decided to forget about the 7:30s and just try to maintain over the second half of the course. Little did I know what that meant.

Mile 7 was 7:36, then 7:30. More like it. I started locking in on people ahead of me to catch and pass, and gradually succeeded. Then 7:35, 7:24. Mile 11 had a HUGE downhill in it; I half expected Lindsey Vonn to go by me in her tuck. Ran that mile in 7:04. At that point, the legs felt dead. I'm just telling myself to maintain. Fortunately, there was a couple of miles of flat to recover. Ran those is 7:48, 7:47. Then we got to a mega-climb. I talked to a woman I know afterward who ran Boston last year. She said this climb makes Heartbreak look like a pimple. Ran mile 13 in 7:56, but man, I was PASSING some people on that hill, including the last of the people I locked on to several miles back. Then we popped out on to Main Street less than a quarter mile from the finish and I hauled some serious butt with what little I had left.

Official time (gun) 1:39:36, (chip) 1:39:30, PR by 59 seconds. Think I might have left a little bit of my race out on that tempo run Tuesday night, but I can't complain about a 59-second PR. And a top-10-percent finish (83rd out of 888) doesn't hurt either.

BTW, for a brand-new race, I thought this one was run pretty well. Traffic control was very good, the expo was nice, they had stuff to keep you entertained in the Square before and after the race. I might have to run it again next year as my last tuneup for The Boston.

I'll get in a recovery run a little later. Just wanted to get a couple of things down this morning.

I'm really happy with my run yesterday. It would have been easy to say in the first 5K that my glutes hurt, it's cold, it's windy, let's shut it down and just get through this race with minimal discomfort. Instead, as Coach Hutchins would have said, I competed. I set my goal on passing people rather than running a certain pace, and lo and behold, by passing people I got a good enough pace for a 59-second PR.

Looking back 30-plus years, there were two things I did (or didn't do) that doomed my running career at the time. I didn't know how to train, and I didn't know how to compete. I went to track practice four or five days a week, but I didn't build a base for all those 440 reps. I should have figured out something from those early morning workouts in 10th grade, which allowed me to get better. But when Jimmy quit going, I quit going too, and my progress was halted. Maybe I would have figured it out later if I'd been able to resume running after the surgery. Or maybe not. I never quite understood that there was a price to pay for being good. I had some talent, I think, but I never gave myself a chance to excel.

Competing was another issue. My races were essentially time trials. I can only remember one time that I actually was focused on passing people -- that 880 in eighth grade where I stumbled trying to pass the kid on the final stretch. Why I didn't learn from that, I dunno. I remember that being exhilarating, actually competing and having a chance to win, but I never replicated that afternoon. Until now.

I'm not fast enough any more, if I ever was, to win races, or even win AG unless I luck into a really weak field (like the "5K"). I'm not gonna run a 5K in 18 minutes, or a 40:00 10K, or a 1:30 half, or a 3:10 marathon. But I can compete. I can pick out that guy ahead of me, and reel him in, and pass him. I can keep that woman behind me from passing me, or pass her back, as I did yesterday. And the other thing I can do is put in the work. The long runs, the tempos, the intervals, the hill sprints, the fartlek. That way, when I want to reel in the guy in the Think Teal t-shirt, I have the training base so that I can. When others are lagging up the Crystal Springs Trail, I can go by them. When the woman passes me on the downhill, I go back in front on the flat.

And now I have another little goal. Someone on the local running scene I want to beat. She doesn't know she's my target, but she is. She's 21 years younger than me and a lot faster, but I don't think she really knows how to train or to race. Her splits tell me she doesn't pace properly. If she did, I couldn't beat her. But just maybe I can keep working and beat her once before she figures it out. I figured out her splits from yesterday. After the 10K mark, she averaged 7:57 miles. I averaged 7:33, which is a negative split. But she'd built up too much lead in the first 6 miles for me to catch her.

OK, scratch that. I now know that I HAVE beaten her. I beat her at Memphis in 2008. Same thing. She was ahead of me for the first half and slowed down, while I maintained my pace better. She's gotten a lot faster, but her pacing is still bad. OK, I still want to beat her now that she's gotten faster.

One more thing: the new VDOT number is 45.39, according to the calculator at attackpoint.org. First time I've pulled it over 45. Which corresponds with 21:39 5K, 44:53 10K, and 3:26:46 marathon on their tables. McMillan correlates it to 3:29:51. Merv says 3:28:53. Runworks says 3:26:44. Runner's World says 3:27:27. Can't get runbayou to work today, for some reason. Now I have to work on getting the rest of my PRs into the 45s (or 46s).

On the road today: 7.01, low and slow. Originally planned 5, then 6, ended up doing 7. Legs felt pretty good considering. Could have gone further, but nah. If I do what I plan to do this week, I'll be up near 60 miles anyway.

Not quite sure how to characterize tonight's run. Started out as just a GA. Then I felt pretty good and decided to push it, and got faster and faster and faster. By mile 5 I was approaching marathon pace. In mile 6 I was sub-MP. In mile 7 I was running as fast as I ran the half Saturday. And in the final tenth of a mile I was at sub-5K pace. Wound up with 7.09 in less than an hour.

Marked St. Patrick's Eve with a low and slow 6 miles at JBH. Noteworthy aspects: started after work and finished before sundown; and ran quite comfortably in singlet and shorts. Both of which are welcome changes after a winter of running after dark, on ice and snow and subfreezing temps, or raw blustery days like Saturday and Sunday.

I'm about to talk myself into entering Hogeye, if I can scrape up $75. That may be the real challenge. It may also have to wait until payday on April 2. But I think a spring marathon would be good experience, even if I'm not out for BQ/PR.

OK, this ought to be interesting. Literally just walked in the door from my first set of ladders. Know times and approximate paces, don't know what mileage that translated into. Lost track of laps in the park, focusing solely on minutes and pace. Let's check the Garmin and see.

Warmed up for 2.02 miles, 19 minutes. Ran a minute at 3K pace (or faster). Jogged a minute. Ran 2 minutes at 5K pace, jogged two minutes. Ran 3 minutes at 10K pace, jogged three minutes. Two more minutes at 5K, jog 2. One more minute at 3K pace, jog 1. Two more at 5K, jog 2. Finish with 3 at 10K pace. Then about 1.7 cooldown to get home.

That adds up to 2.03 miles at pace, 2.02 warmup, 1.72 cooldown, and 1.17 miles of recovery. Total 6.94 miles. Average pace 8:31 even with all the jogging. Finished in less than an hour. Efficient, but painful. A man was out walking his dogs and I jogged by him (the first time) during one of my recovery intervals. His comment was, "That looks like work." All I could muster was, "Yep." I'm thinking, you got that right, mister, it is work. Ladders are a BEAR. Hopefully a productive bear in terms of making me faster, but a bear nonetheless.

I tripped on a stump and did a faceplant about 8 miles into tonight's 9.45 miler. So what? That face plant was about the least painful thing that happened tonight.

An emergency session for Pam and I with John today. I've had about all the emotions I can handle, but there's no end in sight. Just have to keep going and keep coping, somehow. Work actually helps; it's a distraction. Got in 5.15 this afternoon. Legs very heavy. Not sure if that's from increased mileage or decreased sleep; could be both. Gonna try to do 20 tomorrow, then I'll decide about Hogeye.

It will be spring in a few days, but I'm sitting here watching the sleet accumulate in the grass in my front yard. A half hour ago, I was running in that sleet. Twenty two miles, to be exact. Mapped out a new course this morning and set out just before noon. It was just raining then; the sleet came much later, but temp was in the mid-30s and falling. Ran past my office, then down Turner St. all the way down to Lake Fayetteville, then down the hill to the Fayetteville trail system, and turned around at the fence of the UA cross country course. Funny thing -- the Garmin said 11.01 miles at the turnaround and 22.09 when I got home, and I ran exactly the same course.

One thing I can say, I'm not ready for a marathon right now, at least based on this run. This run may have been a HTFU, but it was also kinda dumb on my part. I haven't run more than 14.5 miles in one day since Memphis (and that was last Saturday) and here I add another 7.5 miles to that. Not smart. I finished, but not smart. And given the weather, fairly dangerous. I could easily imagine hypothermia on a run like today. And I probably wasn't far from it. Took a hot shower to warm up when I got home, then a lukewarm "ice bath." Have my feet propped up now as I type and listen to Hog baseball (we're winning). Unless I bounce back very quickly from this, I don't think I'm gonna run Hogeye.

I'm pretty sure this is the heaviest snowfall I've ever seen -- and I still got out and ran in it. Nine inches on the ground and it's not anywhere near letting up, much less stopping. Twenty-mph wind doesn't help either. In spite of all that, got in 3.77, which felt more like 8 with all the high knee lifting required to negotiate deep snow.

In place of running Hogeye (full, half or 5K), I believe I will run Iron Pig instead, which is, among other things, a 5K on the runway at Drake Field. There is also a duathlon (run-bike-run) and a couple of other events, but since I don't own a bike, the duathlon is out. But a 5K on a flat runway would seem to offer a good chance to get a nice fast time/PR. Then I'll aim for Toad Suck for the third straight year. Ten-Ks are hard to find around here and I know it's a manageable course, so maybe if we don't get another frog-strangling thunderstorm I can get another PR.

Guessing at time and distance. Took the Garmin but it died after a mile. I'd hoped to check my AHR on an easy run. With the Garmin dead, couldn't check pace either, so I just tried to keep it where there was no temptation to breathe hard. Got the Garmin to come back on for a few seconds a couple of times just for HR readings; it gave me 137, which is about 70% of my HRR. I think. Legs remained very heavy for the first half of the run, better in the last half. Then I did hill sprints in front of the house, which felt weird, since I haven't done them since before Memphis.

Another tough run tonight when I really didn't feel like running tough. Run turned into a progression, which wound up at sub-MP. Wasn't that I was sore or stiff; just felt blah. Thought I might feel a little better if I picked up t he pace, and I did -- a little. Just decided to keep pushing the pace. HRM showed average heart race of 141, which I thought wasn't bad for as hard as I pushed it. It also showed a max heart rate of 173, which I don't think my heart will go that fast any more; I  suspect that was in the first mile before the strap got sealed in properly. The last .7 mile, which was run at about my GMP for the next year, came it at 149 bpm. That would be workable if I could maintain that pace for three hours plus at that HR. Average pace was 8:49. Ab muscle was a little sore but not enough to slow me in any way; it hurt probably a little more going slow than going fast.

Took the night off. Had some soreness in my right foot, about where the 4th metatarsal meets the cuboid. I've had pain in that area before and run through it, but I decided that, with a race in 10 days and nothing else really on the horizon, why risk it? Take a night off and see if it improves. So I did, and just spent the night listening to Hog baseball. If it's better tomorrow, I'll do the planned tempo run from tonight.

Me and my screwed up pacing. Right foot felt better after last night's URD, although not completely pain-free, and I decided to go do the threshold run I skipped last night. Plan was for 2 X 10 minutes at something between HMP and 10K pace. HMP, as you may recall, was 7:36 at Bentonville. The 10K pace based on that VDOT level, according to attackpoint.org's calculator, is 7:13. So I planned to run something in the 7:25-7:30 range. Uh, no.

First problem is that I didn't take the Garmin off autolap. Obviously 10 minutes at that pace is going to be more than a mile, so autolap will click after the first mile, and then restart the lap pace. So if I look at my watch in the last 2.5 minutes of the run, it will reflect my pace for that last segment, but not reflect the first mile of the interval. All of which led me to run a 7:17 pace for the first 10 minutes. Of course, I didn't know that until I got home and did the math. After a 2-minute recovery walk/jog, started the second 10 minutes. I thought I was being more conservative on that one than the first one. Evidently not. I ran that first mile in 7:15 and then got even faster in the last 2:45 of the segment, to come out with a 7:12 average -- faster than 10K pace at 45.4 VDOT. That pace would be a 22:32 5K, which is only 35 seconds over my PR.

Oh well. I got the intervals done, even if they were faster than planned, jogged home to finish 7.16, and the foot doesn't feel too bad. I think I'll survive.

Easy 7.2 at JBH/lake today. Had to really focus to keep it that slow, in fact. Really wanted to keep the HR down. Managed to keep the average below 140, so I guess I succeeded. It's 60 degrees out there, but unless the wind is blowing, it feels a lot warmer than that. Had to wear the hat to prevent sunburning the noggin, which in turn led to a bit of a headache because the cap is a teeny bit tight. Need to find an older/larger cap, I guess.

Today's plan was 12 miles at sub-9 pace or UIB (until I bonk). Ended up being a UIB. At about 9.8 I realized the tank was quite empty and cut off the big JBH loop to head home. Still managed to average 8:43 for the 10.27 and finished in less than an hour and a half. I don't think the missing 1.73 is gonna hurt anything. I'm in semi-taper mode for Iron Pig anyway.

Easy, slow and stiff. Did 5.64 today at JBH and legs did not want to go there. Took really four miles to loosen up any at all, and never did really get loose. Wind at 25 didn't help either, but HTFU and got through it. Full taper mode for Iron Pig now.

Hudson had intervals on the schedule for me today (the high-mileage 5K plan). At first I was gonna bag them tonight and do them tomorrow. Then I got out there and the legs felt pretty good and it was nice and cool, and I decided to go ahead and do the intervals anyway. Called for 1200m at HMP, then 6 X 400 at something faster like 5K pace or slightly under, sort of a VO2 max run. Well, it was almost 6X400; more like 4 X 400 and 2 X something else, since I couldn't see my Garmin distance or pace very well. Pace turned out OK, two of the intervals turned out .16 and .21 instead of .25. So I did 1.37 miles of 400s instead of 1.50. Oh well. Pace was a little spread out, from 6:37 to 7:08 for the quarters (6:49 would be pure I pace for me). The 1200 came out just about as planned. I'm starting to get an inkling that there is still more speed in there if I can dig it out. Then I have to learn how to sustain it on race day, or sustain enough of it to get where I want to go, like 3:19:xx.

4.5 slow, followed by hill sprints. Actually felt like I was sprinting. Garmin says I got up to 15 mph, which sounds good except that that really means only a 60-second 400. I could run a 60 when I was 14 -- and did. But at least this was uphill; maybe I could get to 16 or 17 on level ground. What's more encouraging is the pulse rate on the recovery run. Once the monitor strap got sealed in after about a mile, my AHR was never over 127 bpm, which is only 73% of HRmax. Maybe I am actually getting in shape. So two more easy runs, and then try to get a nice PR Saturday morning.

Ran a little farther than last night, same course, slightly slower speed. Main difference was it was about 10 degrees warmer. Wanted to see what that did to my heart rate. Answer is, not much. Averaged 130 for the 5.18, which I ran at 9:50 average. Off tomorrow night, slow 3 Fridaty, then bust open a big can of PR.