Getting back to Boston

Progression run tonight after four nights off due to work. Legs felt pretty fresh, although the adductors were barking for some reason, so pushed the pace a little (temps in the 60s didn't hurt either). Ran a tad over 9:00 pace for the first four miles, then accelerated. Actually managed well under 7:00 pace for the last 150 yards, once the adductors had almost loosened up (must be from walking around the hospital so much).

Shower, bed, up before dawn for my last commute down the mountain. Staying there tomorrow night, working Sunday, coming back to pack. Next time I come back up the mountain after Sunday night will probably be in October for a football game, unless I decide to go visit T some time. Which I might.

Back on the road after 10 days for work, packing, moving and football. Garmin didn't want to recharge, so had to go back and measure by car to get tonight's run. although my guess was pretty close.

New place is near Free Ferry Road, which is a pretty busy street that lacks sidewalks. Went up Burnham to Free Ferry, then looped it around to 74th, down to and across Rogers to Phoenix at the airport entrance. Simple route, but very, very hilly. Got to Phoenix in 31:45, and decided I'd try to negative-split it in spite of the fact the return route is net uphill. Managed to get the neg-split by 38 seconds. Distance turned out to be 6.50. That run also links to a 9.3 mile loop around the airport, so that will give me a 16.8 mile run that will be a doozy in terms of hills.

Fartlek run at Ben Geren with the new headlamp. Still stumbled on a rut in the trail anyway, but can't imagine trying this without a light. Five surges totaling 10 minutes in three laps around the trail, which is 4.65 miles. Legs felt pretty good considering I did that hilly run last night. 

Tried out the trail at Cross Park tonight -- nine laps around the lake in the dark. Trail is pretty well lit, but headlamp still helped. Also tried out the new handheld water bottle, which was nice. I cannot believe it was 85 degrees at 8:15 p.m. in late September. Bleah. I would have thought the legs would be fairly fresh after six days off. Nope. Never did really loosen. Somehow kept a 9:50ish pace anyway, in spite of the heat and the legs.

Went to try out the airport loop this morning. Several problems immediately became apparent; some I could fix, some I couldn't:

* Still summerish on the first full day of fall. Temps in low 70s and rising; felt warmer with full, bright sunshine.

* Left my water bottle in the car; realized it after two miles -- too late to turn around and go get it.

* Legs refused to loosen up. It's like they're on strike until fall weather actually shows up.

* And, worst of all, I discovered that the bulk of this loop is on Zero, which has no sidewalks and no shoulders. So it was either get run over or semi-trail run through the unmowed grass and hope I didn't break an ankle in an unseen hole. Wound up walking most of this just to protect my ankle.

Wound up taking about an hour-40 to run/walk what I estimated at 8.75 miles. The loop as laid out on mapmyrun.com was 9.3, but I cut off some stuff on the other side of the freeway and just turned back onto Phoenix at the first opportunity. Also stopped the watch for a while on Massard when I meant to hit the lap button, so probably 6-7 tenths went unrecorded.

You may now initiate autumnal cooling. That is all.

Still don't know what to do about CIM. The financially prudent course would be to skip it, save my money for Boston, and just re-establish my training base through the fall after the turmoil of the summer. But then I have a good run like I did tonight and I start thinking about doing a marathon somewhere, if not necessarily Sacramento.

Ben Geren tonight, progression run around the tennis court loop, each lap faster. First one 14:17, second 13:59, third 13:25. Then a cooldown jog of about 6 minutes. Total 5.18 in 47:31. Weather was mid-60s, not quite as cool as I'd like it but a heckuva lot better than most of what I've been running in for the last five months.

Think I will bag CIM. There are halfs around here I can run -- two in Fort Smith, or Fayetteville, or Bentonville -- to get ready for Boston. Save my money, and my frequent flyer miles for Beantown (Boston registration is three weeks from today).

Back to Cross Park tonight for a late run (start at 9:10). At first I planned seven laps, ore a little over four miles, but felt pretty good so kept going. Ended up doing 11 becaue that's what it was going to take to run for an hour. Ran for an hour and 14 seconds, 6.30 miles. Last 0.30 was at MP, probably more than that, but at least that much. Scared the heck out of one woman walking with her male companion firest time around. By the fifth or sicth time I passed them, they were both sitting still and used to me, but she screamed big time the first time around.

Ran with my new radio. Who needs a playlist? I had classic rock -- Genesis, Zep, The Who, Boston, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steve Miller, Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, Tom Petty, Jethro Tull, Jefferson Airplane and probably a couple more I'm forgetting. I couldn't come up with a much better list than that. And only two commercials in the whole hour. Sweet.

Tonight got me over 50 miles -- for the month. Further reason not to try to run CIM. I'm getting back into the swim, but I'm not gonna be ready to run 26.2 fast in nine weeks.