The Last Few Days

On Saturday morning I did a 16 mile long-run with Assynt McCleod and Steve Schroeder out here in Sugar Land on our out-and-back course. It went pretty smooth - 7:52 pace, even including two stops, though Assynt and I had to drop some 7 flat and sub sevens in the final four miles to get to that number. It was good to get out and go long again. I could tell that I had already fallen out of long-run shape as I was fairly wiped out the rest of the day. My wife and I went down to Galveston that afternoon for our anniversary (15 years) and I managed to pick up a few easy miles with her on the Seawall. That got me to 57 miles total for the week, which is the highest number I've hit this year.

I took Sunday off due to a busy schedule but did get in a nice strength workout at the hotel gym Sunday morning. On Monday I went for 7.31 miles beginning in the heat of 10:30 AM.

Yesterday I only managed about 4.5 but the upside was that I was well rested for speedwork today at the track with Steve. He was running late so I did six of the 400s alone, then six more with him. It was very difficult - a hard pace and warm and muggy conditions. But the times weren't bad:

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

I'm pretty whipped from this workout and am going to turn in early, maybe get in 3.5 tomorrow before work.

Maybe Some Relief Finally

My health/fatigue/iron issue has been on the backburner ever since my doctor told me she didn't think my iron levels were low enough to be causing the fatigue and sub-par performances. I do suffer shortness of breath and had asthma as a child so she headed down that route and offered to prescribe an as-needed inhaler and some other sort twice-daily inhaler. Finally took her up on the offer last week, though I didn't get the prescription filled until yesterday.

It seems to have helped already. I went for three loops (10.65 miles total) in Greatwood tonight and was able to keep my foot on the gas and hang with Brian and it's been awhile since I've been able to do that. But then again maybe I just had a good day. We'll see.

Beach To Bay Marathon Relay - 05/16

I headed down to Corpus Christi on Friday to run on a mens masters team in the Beach To Bay Marathon Relay Saturday morning. My teammates, in the order that we ran, were:

Doug Schroeder
Assynt McCleod
me
Tommy King
Peja Bojovic
Thorleif Egeli

Call us the all European team. We had the nation of Germany represented, Scotland, Ireland (me), Serbia, and Norway. I don't know where Tommy's ancestry is from so not sure about him but I'm pretty sure he's not African, Australian, South American, or Asian. Anyway, we had a great team, composed entirely of Houston Striders, and finished 12th overall, and 2nd in the mens masters division. Our finishing time was 2:44:03, exactly three minutes behind the Tornados team. I'm pretty sure everyone on the team left it all out there and I'm proud of every guy I ran with and to run with them all. A great time was had at the post-race party (the best of any race I've ever done) and I made a couple of new friends from The Striders, the two guys I roomed with - Bob Schamus and Bill Blancett. Bill's team, composed of three Striders and three non-Striders, finished 2nd overall. And Bob's mixed masters team finished 2nd in their category too.

My leg went well enough, though I had positive splits and officially was the guy who gave up our lead to the Tornados when I got passed by John Ackerman. Oh well, I did what I could. My overall pace for the 4.31 was 6:19.

Sorry For Not Posting Lately

Sorry I haven't posted much since Boston. For the first time since I started marathonin I kinda had a post-marathon let down. I wasn't motivated to run and of course by not running I started to convince myself that I had already lost some fitness, what with a 2 week taper then more than a week off afterward. But I got in some decent speedwork last Thursday (always a good snapshot of where I am), and raced the Bayou Bash Relay this past Saturday. I was busy non-stop yesterday but managed to get out tonight for 7.87 miles in 55:53, a 7:07 pace.

It was great seeing so many of you at the HARRA picnic Saturday. We have a great group of people here in Houston who happen to be runners. There's worse groups of folks I could hang out with.