Getting back to Boston

Got caught up on some sleep, a big pasta lunch, then a 7-mile recovery run. Wore the HRM for the first time in quite a while to see how I did on a recovery run; average HR was only 130 at sub-10 pace. Guess the ol ticker shows my improving fitness as well.

Good, hard progression run tonight with strides tacked on at the end. Averaged a little under 9:00 pace for the whole run. So far, getting crunched at work has not affected my training. Hope that trend continues.

Interesting day for both running and my cellphone (and the two are linked): Left the phone at the fitness center last night after my run and didn't realize it until after 10 p.m., when it was pouring AND the center was closed for the evening. Had to go retrieve the phone after 8 a.m., which made me slightly late for work. Went back to run tonight after dinner, when it was again pouring. During the run -- a 12-miler including seven miles of LT work at 7:35 pace -- my water bottle apparently sloshed significantly from the treadmill vibration and the phone, parked behind it in the treadmill slot, musta shorted out. So now I have a nonfunctioning cell, two more nights of call, blah blah. I hate carrying a cell, always have, but unfortunately, I need one.

The tempo run went better than I thought it might. Warmed up for three miles, cranked it up to 7.9. After about 2.5 miles at LT pace, the treadmill decided to quit (OK, I might have knocked the safety key out of place with my finger). Started it back up, got to the halfway point of the tempo run, then needed to make a pitstop. After that little break, warmed up again for two laps and then did the second 3.5 miles more easily than I did the first half, then jogged a mile and a half to complete the 12. Because of the stops and starts, not sure exactly how long it took me to do the 12, but I know the tempo part was about 53 minutes. So now I'm well on my way to a 68- or 69-mile week. (See that, Sasha?)

The remaining question for the week is will I do the 21-miler Saturday night or Sunday morning. The time I get back to town Saturday will decide that in part. So will how I feel, the weather, and the fact that Sunday is Pam's birthday. But I'm gonna run 21 somewhere in there.

Another nine miles of fartlek tonight on the old TM (kept the cellphone well away from any possible sloshing water bottles; my cellphone remains quite dead, and I took Pam's just in case I got paged through the home phone). Ended up with just under 9:00 pace for the nine after all the fartleking. Also spent the last mile or so fighting the urge to toss most of the evening meal (this is why I wait an hour and a half to run after eating if I'm using the old noodle, but didn't have time to wait that long tonight).

Twelve tomorrow, probably 8 Friday, Fayetteville on Saturday and 21 Sunday. The two-week total will be what it should be, but, hey, I guess I can calculate a Monday-Sunday week to get my 70-mile total.

Now off to bed to make up for all that tossing and turning last night. 

Proving once again my high threshold of boredom, or my unwillingness to run outdoors at night and get either mugged or run over, I set out on a 13-mile treadmill run. Yes, nearly two hours on the TM, which consisted of half of the ABC news, the local news, Wheel of Fortune, and a quarter and a half of Wake Forest-Clemson. Fortunately, I had control of the TV remote. If I had been forced to watch, say, Hannah Montana for two hours, I might have intentionally run out onto the freeway.

Pfitz style progression run, with the last four miles at 8:41 pace, and some fartlek thrown in during the early miles just because I was bored out of my skull on the damn treadmill. Not sure of the exact time, because the safety key again got knocked loose at the 8.5 mile mark, but it was somewhere around 1:55, I think. I know the last 4.5 miles took 39:30.

Oh, lest you think I worry too much about running outside at night, may I point out that there have been numerous shootings, fatal and otherwise, in the parking lot of the mall which borders my apartment complex. Not all of those shootings have been at night, but you get the idea. I do not live in the safest neighborhood in Central Arkansas, put it that way.

Another 7 tonight at about 8:45 average pace. No biggie. Until I looked at my written log after I finished. Fourteen miles last Saturday, then 57 miles Sunday-Friday. That, ladies and germs, is a 71-mile week. Or almost the distance from my home now to the house where I grew up. If you'd told me 15 months ago, when I started running, that I'd ever do 70 miles in a week, I would have thought you were completely nuts.

One more thing. I'm really starting to believe that a BQ can actually happen. I can run eight minute miles when I'm tired and sore. I cranked up tonight to sub-MP pace for the last mile or so after 13 last night, after not much sleep and after a very difficult, draining day at work. And after 69 miles since last Saturday, too.

What's it going to be like when I get back into downtown Memphis, late on the morning of December 6? Am I going to have a chance to get under 3:31? Am I going to be in great shape and cruising, or have to put the hammer down for the last mile, or just have a good time in range but not a BQ? And what am I going to feel like when I enter AutoZone Park to finish the race? Exhilaration, disappointment, or just exhaustion?

No running today, just hiking all over the campus in Fayetteville with Tyler. He's really enthusiastic about college, which I'm glad to see, but the walking on campus is really going to be problematic. I think at the very least he's gonna need a bicycle to get around; his feet will not tolerate the amount of walking he'd need to do, even living on campus and riding the bus whenever possible. He really likes the new Maple Hill dorm as well, which has suites and semi-private bathrooms (shared with suitemates not the whole wing). Which is OK with me, although quite expensive compared to other dorms. The privacy is the big issue.

On my part, I discovered that even with the amount of running I do (or perhaps in part BECAUSE of the amount of recent training), hiking those hills on campus wasn't particularly easy for me either. Which didn't come as a huge surprise.