Return To Thursday Speedwork

I met Steve Schroeder this evening for our usual Thursday speedwork session at the track. It's been 3 weeks since I last did this workout and I'm not sure why. I know that last Thursday was the Turkey Trot but I can't recall why I didn't do it two weeks ago. Oh well.

I haven't been feeling fast lately, given my 10K and the 4.4 mile run I did Sunday night so I had some trepidation tonight before this workout, but things turned out fine. The speed is still there. We did our normal 12x400, with a walking, 2 minute recovery, after each. Here are the splits:

1:20, 1:18, 1:16, 1:17, 1:17, 1:18, 1:20, 1:18, 1:18, 1:18, 1:19, 1:15.

Monday Tempo With Steve

Met up with Steve Schroeder today at 5:45 PM for our normal Monday tempo run on the Greatwood loop. 2 x 3.55 miles.

Things just felt awesome and we had a spring in our step from the beginning. We never really pushed the pace but didn't hold back either, just went with the feeling. Hit the first loop in a fairly brisk 25:02 (7:03 pace), then picked it up on the second loop. That one came in at 24:30 (6:54 pace) for a 2 loop total of 49:32 (6:59).

Everything feels 100% but I'm going to take tomorrow and Wednesday off, with speedwork on Thursday, something easy on Friday, then the 4.4 tempo run again on Saturday or Sunday. Should come in around 20 or so miles this week. Next week it'll just be the Monday run with Steve and speedwork on Thursday. And we may do a few miles on Saturday in Dallas at a sub 7 pace just to shake the dust off before the race the next morning.

Sunday Night Tempo

Now that I'm in taper mode, my plan is to significantly dial back the volume of my training, but retain some quality. I want put the finishing touches on my fitness by continuing with the Thursday track work, and mixing in a couple of shorter, red-line runs. At least that's my plan this week. Next week may be even easier.

With that in mind, I went out tonight to tackle the 4.4 mile route I used to run in my old neighborhood. It's a good, flat course, with a turnaround at 2.2 miles. I like the course and am very familiar with every aspect of it. I wasn't feeling 100%, given the long-run on Friday and the fact that I couldn't catch up on sleep all weekend. There was also a headwind going out but I did what I could. I covered the outbound 2.2 miles in 14:17 (6:30 pace) but took advantage of the wind at my back to post a 13:32 (6:09 pace) on the return.

Total distance: 4.4 miles, 27:49 (6:19 pace).

Let The Taper Begin

I met up with Scott Grischow at 6 AM this morning in Memorial Park for our final long-run before Dallas. Our plan was to do 22 miles at a comfortable, conversational pace - no hammering.

And that's pretty much what we did. Scott had planted some bottles of water in River Oaks and we hit those at about 7 miles. We ended up going just a bit into downtown before his Garmin chimed 11 miles. We turned on a dime, I clicked the split, and we headed back to retrace our steps back to the park. We took a minor wrong turn somewhere along the way, which resulted in a total distance of 22.18 miles. We also stopped a couple of times for water on the way back in - once at Waugh and Allan Parkway, and one more time at our bottles in River Oaks. We covered the first 11 miles in 1:23:57, and the second 11 miles in 1:23:11, including stops. A well-managed, controlled run. Of course it helps that Scott is one heck of a runner - much better than I. And an interesting guy too. I found out during our run that Scott has climbed the highest peak in North America, South America, Africa, and I think Europe. Scott, were you surprised that I knew the names of those mountains, especially Australia and South America? Scott is heading to Australia in a month or so to conquer their highest mountain, and will do Everest next year. And I thought running marathons was a challange.

In hindsight I wish we'd have thrown in some marathon goal pace running but I just didn't think of it. And with the 10K yesterday I'm not sure how much of that we could have done anyway. Our pace worked out to 7:35 and it really felt almost effortless. I could have easily covered another 4 miles to get to 26.2, which would have worked out to a 3:18 marathon.

Now begins the taper. Very little running the next two weeks.

Return Of The Monkey

I had a pretty decent summer of racing, with a peak performance of 18:38 at the Lunar Rendezvous 5K in July. Not a PR but my season best. But from there things began to go downhill. I raced only twice in August but both were poor performances. And September was awful. At every race a monkey would show up and climb on my shoulders, preventing me from doing what I was capable of, and in some cases, had even already done in training or recent races. I'd show up ready to hammer but would be winded after mile 1 at a pace that should have been relatively easy. Then October came, with longer races and the monkey was banished. I did the 10 miler and 1/2 marathon at a faster pace than the two 10Ks I had done the previous month, and I managed to run strong all the way through to the last mile of the 25K.

Today the monkey made a triumphant return at my Turkey Trot and I turned in a turkey of a performance. My recent race times suggested I should be able to go sub 38 in a 10K and that was my goal - a 6:05 to 6:10 pace through the first half then see what I had left. I hit the first mile in 6:11 but it felt fast and I was breathing hard - with the wind at my back. The second mile was a 6:10 - so far so good. But it just felt damned fast - I was inexplicably teetering on the verge of oxygen debt. The third mile was a 6:09 but I knew I was about to start slipping. Mile four was 6:16, and mile five was 6:18. We turned onto Post Oak and headed straight into a fierce north wind. There was no mile six marker but my final 1.2 miles was done in 8:02, a 6:40 pace. I finished in a disappointing 39:05, eight seconds slower than I went in training a week ago. I should have been a minute faster. I'm very, very disappointed.

I've done some thinking today and decided that while I may be able to turn in a good performance at the 5K distance all the way through 26.2 miles, the longer stuff comes naturally to me, while the shorter stuff I really have to work at to do well. I have to train specifically for the short stuff to do anything decent, while the longer stuff just plays better into the hand I've been dealt. I haven't trained for the short stuff recently, getting nowhere near sub 6 minute pace in months, and that hurt me today.

That explanation works okay for me, but it still sucks though. I just can't believe that I can run a 10K all out and hit a 6:18 pace, yet I can run a 1/2 marathon at a 6:22 pace and drop a 6:13 mile at mile 12. Damned monkey. I'm going to strangle that son of a bitch one day, once and for all.

Sunday Long Run - "Go. Now"

I had planned to head to Memorial Park with Steve Schroeder this morning. We were going to meet at 5:30 AM, get to the park by 6, do a loop before the Bayou City runners showed up, then pound some miles with them until we got to 20 or 21. I got up at about 4 AM to go to the bathroom and heard the rain coming down steady. At 5 AM Steve sent a text message saying essentially, "screw this crap". So I went back to bed. During 9:30 AM church I kept trying to figure out when I'd be able to get in a long-run today. I've had a light week thus far and am close to taper mode for Dallas (3 weeks from today) so I've got to get these long-runs in, one way or another. My wife was planning to take our 4 year old to a birthday party today from noon to 4 PM and we had another party tonight at 5 PM for Steve's little girl so I wasn't sure when I'd be able to pull it off.

We got home from church at about 11 AM and started working on lunch. My wife took another glance at the party invitation for today and noticed that it was at 2 PM, not noon. I hadn't made my own lunch yet but was about to get it going (I was very hungry), when my wife said, "You still want to do your long-run? Go. Now!" I don't argue when it's put to me that way so I headed for the bedroom to dress for a run. I also grabbed the phone and called Steve. He was up to his elbows in honey-dos but said he'd be ready in 15 minutes and head over. I went back to the kitchen, made room for a few ice cubes in my 32 oz bottle of Power-Ade so I could plant it on the New Territory loop and headed for the door. My wife gave me one condition - be home by 2 PM at the latest. So, looking down at my watch which read 11:40 I wondered how far I could get in 2 hours 20 minutes.

I made it up to the 3.2 mile loop (actually 3.19 to be precise) and decided to make tracks before Steve showed up. I wasn't sure if I'd see him on the first loop or the 2nd so I wanted to run a strong pace and get some time in the bank before we settled into a conversational pace. My goal was to complete six loops (19.2 roughly) and make it home by 2 PM.

I hit the first loop in 22 minutes flat, a 6:52 pace. I didn't see Steve until almost two miles into the second loop so I had my bank by the time he joined me. The 2nd loop was 22:30. The 3rd loop was an easier 23:28 (7:20 pace). After the 4th loop I needed to hit my bottle, having just ingested a goo and starting to need a pick-me-up. That 4th loop was a decent 22:54 (7:09 pace) but we burned about 45 seconds of the 5th loop sucking down liquid refreshments so loop #5 was 23:58 (7:29 pace). My legs were really getting fatigued from the pounding of the concrete and the effects of this very rolling, non-PR course. I clocked a 23:33 final loop (7:22 pace) and headed home, leaving Steve to finish on his own. Hated to do it but you don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. I made it to my house right at 2 PM.

Including the distance I had to cover from my house to the loop and back, added to 6 loops, I figured I covered about 19.4 miles today on a course that would be good training for Boston, and under warmer and muggier than ideal conditions.

Total distance: 19.4 miles, 2:19:13 (7:11 pace).

10K Training Run

I took Monday off because I was pretty whipped from the 25K. Very whipped in fact. I felt like I had done a marathon the day before. Yesterday I met Steve Schroeder at Memorial Park after work for what turned out to be about 8.5 relatively easy miles. So tonight I expected to be pretty close to fully recovered, and with the Luke's Locker Uptown Turkey Trot 10K on the agenda for next week I wanted to press the envelope and run an aggressive 10K training run tonight. I'll try to do another one early next week.

It turned out that I wasn't fully recovered and wasn't able to do the pace I wanted, but still had a decent run. I did 19:35 going out (6:19 pace), and 19:22 coming back (6:15 pace). Overall pace worked out to 6:17 but I need to be 10 seconds a mile faster next week or I'm going to be disappointed. Based on my 10 miler and 1/2 marathon I should be able to dip below 38 minutes but I haven't been focusing on shorter hard tempo runs in some time, and all my races have been the long stuff for the last six weeks. I know there was a little more there tonight but there needs to be alot more there next week. We'll see.

Update On Dallas Marathon

Got an e-mail yesterday from the best man in the wedding I'm in. He's the groom's brother and is organizing the bachelor party. His e-mail said that it looks like the best date is December 1 and it's settled. Dallas is on! Registered today. I'm praying that it's cold and clear, no wind.

25K - "Tougher Than A 50 Cent Steak"

My buddy Rudy Pacheco in Phoenix uses this expression to describe something very difficult. He certainly would have used it today. I guess I had a good day if you don't look at my overall time or pace. Now that's a preposterous statement on it's face so I have a bit of difficulty with such a rationalization. But anyone who did the 25K today probably understands.

I had planned to try to hold the same pace I ran the 1/2 in - 6:22, but knew that would be difficult considering that it was about 70 degrees and humid at the start and only got worse. I held on to a sub 6:30 pace through 4 miles but knew in my heart that I was fooling myself. Once I finally let go and dialed it back just a tiny bit I settled into a pace I thought I'd be able to hold for some time, though it would prove tough - tougher than that 50 centy steak Rudy describes. I've never had a 50 cent steak actually, but did have one for $1.99 in Laughlin, NV at a casino. It actually wasn't bad.

Anyway, once again I ran my own race, mostly alone. I had my running partner Brian King with me for the first few miles then he started to pull away just a bit. But a couple miles later he came back to me and we ran together until about mile 6 or 7. He was sick yesterday so he had to drop back. Then I was truly on my own. Time to see if I could start reeling a few people in. Actually, I had no idea I'd be able to reel anyone in. Every mile was like a round in a boxing match against the heavyweight champ. I felt fortunate just to survive each one.

Somewhere toward the end of the second loop or early in the third I passed the third overall female. Also somewhere early in that third loop I saw Leno Rios standing on the corner and he yelled at me to "catch that guy". I looked ahead and saw two runners in sight. Hey Leno, not sure which one you were talking about but mission accomplished because I got them both. Then, toward the end of the outbound portion of loop 3 I passed a couple of guys who were running together.

Not long after the turn to head back in for the final time, I noticed a guy 20 feet in front of me that I hadn't seen all day. I mean, this guy so came out of nowhere that I was wondering if he was pulling a Rosie Ruiz. There was another runner in front of me who quickly passed him and as I passed this mystery guy too I decided to catch up to the other runner and ask him where the heck that guy had come from. I sped up and we talked a bit but I don't think he ever really understood what I was trying to figure out. After chatting briefly I took off. Shortly after that I passed two more guys, along with the 2nd overall female (who I had been following for what seemed like 10 miles). Then at the 14th mile marker I was essentially even with a guy who had beaten me soundly at the 1/2 two weeks ago, and he's also in my age group. Should I try to pass him now, or wait? I decided to make my move. This turned out to be a good choice because I was really starting to labor in the last mile and a half and knowing that he might be right on my heels forced me to stay strong. I passed 3 more guys in the final 1/2 mile or so. I consider myself lucky to have passed anyone in those last few miles. If they were dying, I was just a few steps further from death's door myself. I think the fact that I make no effort to seek out the best temperatures for my training runs paid off today. I also have some pretty tough training runs so I'm no stranger to pain.

I crested the final overpass and it was a home-stretch view in front of me. I doubt I went very fast in that last quarter mile but I gave it all I had. I didn't get passed by anyone but did have some guys on my heels, including the guy I had passed at mile 14. In fact, after the first few hundred yards at the start, no one passed me all day, other than a relay runner at about mile 8.


Here are the stats:

4th in my age group (though that's inflated a bit because they pulled three out for overall masters, and all three were from my age group).

30th overall.

Loop splits: 34:05, 33:55, 33:44. Yes, negative splits all the way through but I don't think the loops were all exactly the same distance.

Mile splits:
1: 6:29
2: 6:30
3 & 4: 12:40
5: 6:59 (?)
6: 6:34
7: 6:35
8: 6:35
9: 6:39
10: 6:33 (10 mile time = 1:05:35)
11: 6:33
12: 6:22 *(my fastest mile again!)
13: 6:41
14: 6:31
15: 6:35
.5: 3:22

Total: 1:41:39 by my watch, 1:41:41 on the chip. It won't age grade as well as my 1/2 but what can you do? I worked way harder today than I did at the 1/2.

Wisdom From DailyKos (A Non-Running Post)

A brilliant discussion about the enormous cost of NOT doing anything about our dependence on oil.

LINK

"We shy away from changing how we make cars, because we're concerned about jobs in the auto industry. We hesitate to halt destructive energy extraction, because we worry about the trickle of revenue it generates. We never acknowledge that the price of preserving the status quo far exceeds what it would take to break free of the current paradigm. Faced with eminent starvation, we can't stop fighting over the last can of beans long enough to plant a garden."

White Rock Marathon

For some time now I've been leaning strongly toward doing the Dallas White Rock Marathon on December 9th. I'm already signed up for Houston but I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket. The weather is always a crap-shoot and I'd hate to waste all this fitness I've worked so hard for on one lone marathon that may not feature ideal conditions. I did Dallas once before. It was my first marathon ever, back in 2003, and man was it cold and clear with little wind.

But my plans were upended the other night by a phone call I made to a good friend of mine, John. John is getting married on Saturday, December 15, and I'm a groomsman. I knew that the wedding itself wouldn't interfere with Dallas, but what about a bachelor party? John and I have been very good buddies for more than 10 years and there's no way I could be so selfish as to bail on his bachelor party so that I could do a marathon that I haven't even signed up for, when I have another one a month later. So I called John to get the details and sure enough, the bachelor party is the weekend before the wedding, Saturday night, December 8. And it's here in town. So Dallas is now out. I was really looking forward to lining up with Steve and Doug Schroeder and Jake Tonge, as we all targeted sub 3 hours. Guess I'll have to wait until Houston. But I was also kicking around the idea of the Kingwood marathon on Jan. 1. Probably not though. Too close to Houston two weeks later.

But I do think I will try to do the 30K in Sugar Land on December 9th, the morning after the bachelor party. That race is all of 10 minutes from home (no exaggeration) and I'm not a big drinker anyway. If I could be in bed by midnight I think I'd be fine to get up at 5 the next morning. And since I'm doing all the other warm-up races and also the marathon, I'd qualify for the Iron Foot, and just might pick up another good race performance for runner of the season standings. I've got two decent ones so far but am not overally optomistic about the 25K this weekend due to the warm temps. And who knows how my marathon will turn out.

Anyway, just thought I'd update my thousands of readers.

Tuesday Through Friday

A rather uneventful week in my running (thus no blogging) because I'm taking it easy due to the 25K coming up this weekend.

On Tuesday I did 5.8 miles at a 6:51 pace. No running on Wednesday as I wanted to be fully recovered for speedwork yesterday. During the 5.8 mile run I tried to hammer and just couldn't get to that top gear without red-lining so I took Wednesday off. Having to recover sucks.

Yesterday I met Steve and Brian at the jr. high track for our 400 repeats. I got there late and they had already done three of the normal 12, so I jumped right in. Once their 12 were done (and I had nine under the belt) they agreed to split up the duty of running my final three with me. It really wasn't necessary and I know they were spent but they're troopers and total team players. They helped me through to comletion of my 12. The times are below.

1:18, 1:17, 1:16, 1:17, 1:17, 1:19, 1:17, 1:16, 1:18, 1:17, 1:16, 1:12

I think these times represent my best speedwork session. It was a good day to hammer.

Then this morning I got up and went out for an easy 3.5 miles before work. The weather was just like it's going to be Sunday. It sucked. But I guess we'll deal with it.

Monday Tempo Run With Steve

I met Steve Schroeder yesterday at 5:30 PM for our usual Monday tempo run. He hadn't run since our long-run Friday night and I was fairly fresh as well so we had a good tempo run. We did 7.1 miles (2 loops), with a good negative split and an all-out pace for the last mile or so. There's one final turn on the loop that is .8 miles from the completion point and this is where we usually take it to another gear if we're feeling it. We were. Or at least Steve was and I held on, or at least tried to. I took it up one gear, Steve took it up two. From the final turn he covered the .8 miles in 4:46, easily the fastest any of us have ever covered that stretch, and good enough for a 5:57 pace over the .8 mile. Here are the particulars:

Total distance covered: 7.1 miles. Total time (for me) 50:09 (7:04 pace).
Loop splits: 25:45 (7:15 pace), 24:24 (6:52 pace).

Note: I'm very concerned about the projected conditions for the 25K this Sunday. The forecasted low that morning is 65, with a high of 81. It may change a little but not much. That's too warm, especially if you're planning to hammer a 6 something pace. I wore a shirt and hat yesterday just to try to force my body to re-acclimate a bit to warmer conditions and will do so the rest of the week. Maybe this will help me deal with the warmer temperatures Sunday.

Week-Ending Run

I skipped running on Saturday because I didn't get enough sleep and was tired all day, plus we had dinner with friends (Mexican food) at 7 PM and it would have been really difficult to run after that.

So Sunday I caught 3.7 miles with my wife, then an uninspiring 7.1 miles alone over on the Greatwood loop. I was tired again all day Sunday so I didn't have the energy to do a barn-burner Sunday night like I planned.

I totaled 61.5 miles this week.

Friday Night Long-Run

I met Steve Schroeder and Brian King last night at around 8:40 PM for 19.65 miles on the Greatwood Loop. We could have used cooler weather but otherwise things went according to plan. We had no intention of trying to crank the pace since this is more than 3 miles farther than we've gone thus far. We just wanted to run at a conversational, relaxed pace for close to 20 miles and that's what we did.

The run consisted of 5 times around the Greatwood Loop, which I always put down as being 3.55 miles, but actually it's 3.53 if you want to be exact. That would get us to 17.65 miles, then the plan was to do a mile out, and a mile back, for a total of 19.65. Steve and I stopped for about 20 seconds after loops 2 and 4 (kept the watch going) to grab a drink. Brian opted to stop after loop 3 only.

Our loop splits were: 26:51, 26:28, 26:29, 26:25, and 26:24. The mile out was 6:52 but instead of clicking a split at that point, I mistakenly stopped the timer. I know our mile coming back was way faster than the 6:52 going out, but I'm conservatively calling it a 6:30.

So the totals were: 19.65 miles, 2:26:00 (7:26 pace).

Came home and soaked in a tub filled with cold water and 20 lbs of ice. That was the worst part of the entire night! But feel fine today. I was going to go out and pick up some easy miles tonight but have decided to take today off and hit it hard tomorrow evening. Maybe an all-out 10 miler, or back to the Greatwood Loop for a fast 14.2. We'll see.

Sad news today about Ryan Shay. I just read that he had an enlarged heart. But I'd like to know more. I've read that distance runners can have hearts as much as 30% larger than the average adult. And that's normal. My mom, of course, has already sent me the article and I'm sure she'll use it to try to convince me that running isn't healthy.

Double Duty Thursday

I did an easy 3.5 miles Thursday morning before work. Gee, what happened to the cool weather?

Then I met Brian King after work for our 400 meter repeats at the track. They are truly repeats now instead of intervals, since w'ere doing a walking recovery that really amounts to a full recovery. I didn't have the get up and go that I normally do for these sessions. Each one was a fight to the finish but the times were only off by a second or so of our best workouts. Steve Schroeder couldn't join us because he was turning in a fine 18:27 at the Rice Owls 5K.

Here are the splits: 1:22, 1:19, 1:19, 1:18, 1:19, 1:18, 1:18, 1:18, 1:20, 1:19, 1:18, 1:15

Easy Wednesday

Did 5.70 miles on Wednesday night. Nothing too tough, about a 7:20 pace. Went out about 8 PM. Speedwork tomorrow and a big run on Friday night so I needed to take it easy.