Getting back to Boston

Back in the saddle tonight with an easy, easy 4 on the dreadmill. Purposely kept the pace above 10:00. Muscles still a little stiff, particularly on the lateral hips, but no major discomfort. Stretched afterward, trying to loosen up some more. I think Monday morning's massage did a lot to help my recovery, and I think I'm in better shape now than I was five days after my other two marathons.

Looking more and more like the game plan will go this way: Start a short "summer training" cycle focusing on speed work aiming for a couple of 5Ks in July: Firecracker and River City. Having hopefully sharpened the speed, start a marathon cycle in early August aiming at, most likely, Memphis. I know the course, the weather is more likely to be favorable for me (meaning cold), and it's reasonably close. Don't know what kind of marathon training I'll do. Pfitz again? Maybe. I'll look at Hudson and Daniels. I may even look at FIRST, although the thought of doing my crosstraining on the spinning bikes at NLRAC does not thrill me. Anyway, I'm back on the road.

Back with the Crackheads today for an easy 6 on the River Trail. Kept it slow, 9:38 pace. Legs felt pretty good, not perfect, but all right. Everybody wanted to know about Newport and what happened. They thought 3:48 was a pretty darn good time for cramping up. Which, in retrospect, it was. Just have to go get 'em at Memphis.

Started out tonight as an easy run, legs felt good, got bored and cranked it up to MP. Since my problem seems to be holding MP for 26 miles, I guess I need more MP miles. So we start that process tonight. No problems at all.

Now that I have the 25th anniversary out of the way and the kid's registered for college classes, I can focus on running a little more. Tonight, battling the humidity on the River Trail for a hard 6 miler -- negative split, last mile at tempo pace, 80-plus degrees at 80% humidity. I'd say the battle was a tie. Got a good run in, but it really kicked me hard. If I'm gonna do good 5Ks this summer, though, I need tough runs like this. Next week, I probably start doing some reps at the East Campus track toward that end.

New addition to the Spiderpig training arsenal: Five miles on the dreadmill -- every bit of it uphill at least 2%, most of it 4-5-6-8%. And progression style to boot, ending with MP for the last mile. The glutes were objecting a little bit, but not too badly, and now an hour later they're not barking. We'll see if they growl in the morning when I run with the Crackheads. Speaking of which, I guess I'll reluctantly go to Maumelle to run. Hate running out there, but at least it's a lot cooler after a front blew through this afternoon accompanied by thunder and more than one twister.

Looking now like a move to NWA is at least a possibility. We'll see what develops from here.

Out to Maumelle today to run with the Crackheads. Tom and Hobbit are just back from Spain and were leading the motley crew again. Normally I don't run well at Maumelle, and we always seem to catch some weird weather, usually humid, but today wasn't too bad. It was about 70, bit of a breeze. Still good sweating weather but not intolerable. Plan was to run 8, and I started out slowly. Got to the turnaround point and the Garmin said 4.36. I said if I'm gonna run 8.72 I might as well make it 9, so I kept going across the boulevard, then turned around and came back. Tried to push the pace more on the return trip per usual, and U think I did so. Got back and the Garmin read 9.04 in 1:24 and change. Not a bad run for two weeks after a marathon and 12 hours after a treadmill hill run. I did feel some discomfort in the right hip, but not where I thought I would have hurt after a  hill run. Was able to push through it, and now after my nap the hip doesn't seem to hurt, so not sure what that was about. Anyway, back up to 25 miles this week. Start my 5K training plan , maybe, next week.

Back on the dreadmill tonight for 4 easy and one at GMP, uphill. Run went well. I think I'm pretty much recovered from the marathon. Probably start intervals tomorrow or Wednesday, trying to get ready for 5Ks to come.

Back on the TM tonight after a two-day hiatus due to job stress and a little baseball game in Omaha. Decided to push it a bit -- sub-9 pace all the way, then a little faster, then MP with a mile to go, then 6:00 pace for the last half-mile. That 6:00 felt pretty good. makes me almost think I could run a sub-19:00 5K. Hey, I'd be thrilled with sub 21, and I'll probably try to pace for sub-20. Anyway, good run for me. No twinges at all.

Did 8.4 this morning at Pinnacle with Pat and the rest of the Crackheads. Decided against the trail option; I'm not an experienced trail runner and a sprained ankle today would not have been good, since I'm going to Clarksville today to talk to Dr. Brooks. So Pat and I hit the roads. One of those 80/80 mornings with zero breeze (80 degrees, 80% humidity). Reminded me of Houston, actually, although Houston usually has some wind anyway. Pat started out way too fast and for once I was the one that reined him in. We ended up doing some common-sense walking in response to the heat, finished our 8.4 miles in a little over 10:10 average pace.

Off to Clarksville in a bit. I may put in 3-4 tonight on the DM just because I feel like a slacker only running three days this week. Or I may not. Hope this meeting goes well. I really am tired of worrying about my job every single day, and I'd like to get back to NWA sooner rather than later.

Addendum: Did go back in spite of a very runny nose and put in 4 miles on the TM tonight. Drainage stopped while I was running, resumed when I finished. Go figure. Start some intervals this week trying to get ready to run a decent 5K at Firecracker.

Over to East Campus tonight for track intervals -- 8 X 200 at 45 seconds per rep, roughly. My first outdoor reps in about a year. Tough night for it; I'm still getting over the weekend illness and it's still 90 degrees and humid. managed to get in all eight reps despite the heat, some wheezing and a bad case of cottonmouth. Probably would have tried to do 5 or 6 X 400 if not for the URI. But this came out OK. I know I didn't overdo it this time. Guy watering his yard offered to hose me down as I was jogging home afterward. I should have taken him up on it.

Probably no run tomorrow; have a birthday dinner for Scott down at Benton. Might get in a short run late.

Still not completely over the crud yet, but felt good enough to venture over to the AC for a late, fast 5-miler. Started at 9:15, had to finish before closing time at 10. Ran the first 3.75 at sub-9 pace, bumped it to 7:53 for the last 1.25. Finished with a minute-22 to spare :) Legs felt a little tight (I've been lax on my stretching lately) but had no problem maintaining pace and then accelerating.

 I'll finally go over 1400 miles for the year tomorrow, I think. It's taken me four weeks to get 100 miles, and that included 26.2 in Newport. But I think I'm ready to step up the training a bit once I'm over this URI. May not be ready to run fast on the 4th, but maybe at Dam Night.

Another run till they chase me off night on the dreadmill. Started a little earlier, ran a little slower, and got in 5.20 before the cop ran me out of the fitness room (he's become more diligent, used to show up at 10 after). Which puts me over 1400 miles for the year. Definitely a slow recovery pace. Felt a little better as I got a tiny bit faster. Running sub-10 miles just does not agree with my legs.

Another 80/90 morning -- 80 degrees, 90% humidity. Tech shirts were no help. Even a breeze was no help. Nothing evaporated. So we just had to slog it out there. Started at the Surgical Hospital, looped around to BDB, the the River Trail. I took Tom's 8-mile course (turn around at the wooden bridge) and added a mile, turning past the quarry, which gave me a 10-miler. Didn't run fast, but I ran. Actually had Gatorade again, which was nice to have a drink with some flavor and some electrolytes.

(Have I mentioned lately that I hate HEED almost as much as I hate running in 80/90 weather?)

Still debating about Firecracker next Saturday. I'll probably run it, but question 2 is how to run it. I think the smart thing to do is to run a fairly conservative pace (but still fast enough for a PR if I can hold it, since my PR is really soft). I haven't done enough speedwork to feel comfortable going for a sub-21 or something. Maybe try to go sub-21 at Dam Night.

Easy 3 on the DM, except the right ITB decided to act up. The RIGHT ITB almost never acts up, so this was unusual, but it just seemed to be sore, not injured, and didn't get worse. We'll see if this continues.

Didn't get to run Monday night; we were looking on the Net for possible places to live. So I decided to get up early to run at the AC. Good thing the cat got hungry at 5:45 a.m., because I set the alarm for 6 PM. But the furry alarm clock took care of that, I got up, went over there, ran a hard 5 with the last 400 at 6:00 pace. Took me just 44 minutes. Good thing the treadmills weren't in heavy demand this morning.

Tonight I decided to do something I may not have done since high school. Or maybe not even then -- two tough workouts in one day. One easy, one hard, sure, but I pushed it pretty good this morning, then pushed it even harder tonight. Back on the treadmill, thanks to heavy later afternoon rains (that made things much cooler but also put puddles on the track at East Campus) for intervals. Two and a quarter warmup with a stretch break tucked in there, then 9 X 200 at 6:00. That pace felt a lot faster tonight than the same pace did this morning, not sure why. I ran 400 at pace this morning and a mile-plus tonight. Then 1.62 of cooldown afterward, total 6. Eleven total for the day, with nearly a mile and a half of haulin'. Anyway, the legs responded, got through it OK without a wipeput on the dreadmill, and now I have four full days of backdown before Firecracker on Saturday (which I entered today).