Chaire Herodikos Selymbriaios!

Worked late, hot date, had to squeeze a run in between them. Felt the need for speed, and was able to run relaxed throughout. Working somewhat hard on the faster mile to keep it up, mostly mental effort. The legs felt fine.

4: 7:38, 6:47, 7:22, 7:27 (7:17). Waverider.

530 with DG + Interurban Trail to Aurora bicycle bridge. Beautiful clear morning, stars and moon, winy air, but co-o-o-ld. No frogs.

Last long run before the marathon, wanted to make it count. I can feel that I'm a bit behind where I want to be, not sure whether the BQ is realistic at this point, especially given the course and likely conditions, but will give it my best shot.

Ran Bainbridge again, as my mother returned from France with an apparent neurological problem and needed some attention. Conditions were pretty good, overcast with occasional sunbreaks, about 55F. Made sure this time to stash a few bottles of Gatorade at strategic locations, and that indeed seemed to do the trick. Felt pretty strong, a bit of foot pain after mile 15 or so. On the other hand, was able to run mile 20 in 7:19. The key question is whether that is a sustainable pace. A little uncertain on that front, though of course this route was quite a bit more challenging than the marathon will be, with around 5000ft total elevation gain. I guess we'll see.

Nice runner's high at mi 16. Waverider.

Splits:

1	8:33
2	8:21
3	7:44
4	8:22
5	8:17
6	7:35
7	7:37
8	8:02
9	7:48
10	7:56
11	8:15
12	8:12
13	8:08
14	8:30
15	8:14
16	8:31
17	8:02
18	8:25
19	7:52
20	7:19
21	8:41
22	8:23

To turnaround: 1:28:30 (8:03)

Return: 1:30:13 (8:12)

Total: 2:58:43 (8:07)

Rest day. Legs feel good. Biked 15 mi at a very leisurely pace, since I can't get the front derailleur on my commuter bike to shift to the top chain ring.

530 with DG + Fremont to 115th. Took it easy for the most part but mixed in 8 x 100m strides. Air temperature rather pleasant, had the tights and gloves on just for fun. Legs a bit dead to start out (maybe in part because of the tights?), but when I picked it up a bit after 4 mi mark they seemed fine.

AM: 530 with DG + nothing flat. Ate a very skimpy dinner, and woke up at 3:30 with a blood sugar crash. Had an apple, then keeled over again until right before he knocked. Needless to say conditions were not ripe for a very impressive effort, and I was in fact struggling to hit 10:00 miles until finally my shoelace came untied and I had to catch up with him, at which point I broke through into another gear, to garble my metaphors. Well, the 9:00 mile gear at least. An interesting illustration of Pachevian neural drive. Clearly what was keeping me at sub-glacial speeds was not in the first instance inadequate fuel for the muscles, but inadequate fuel to the brain. I'll try to run another 4 this evening. Nimbus orange.

 PM: 4 faster miles (7:39, 7:09, 6:57, 7:25) plus .34 mi cooldown in 31:49. Free and easy.

AM - one lap of Greenlake: draggy, grumpy, hurty. I did pick it up at the end to beat the... 9:00 guy.

530 with DG. Legs felt fine but I was home at 130 last night so that will be that.

A couple of laps around Greenlake followed by omelette with Joanne. One lap with David at a 7:30ish clip.  Mileage record for the week, but it was all front-ended, so I'm feeling pretty spry.

Postscript: Great nap.

Feeling very fatigued, so flipped my usual rest day.

4 mi with DG at whatever pace, then 3 at about 7:30. Filthy rain and swirling wind. It was OK after I was warmed up. Still, got home soaked.

530 with DG + Fremont to 105th. Lovely morning. Legs felt vewy vewy good. (Maybe it was the IP I took before going to bed.) Only other news to report: quite a bit of gas, successfully passed. This is a skill.

530 with DG + Fremont to 105th. Chilly. Was feeling pretty lackadaisical after a nice seven hours of sleep but after some internal kibbitzing slipped nicely into gear on mi 5 and the last one felt pretty good.  Slight emergency re-entering nice warm house. Must remember to evacuate previous evening's burrito in advance.

Bear of a day. At work until very late and never got my run in. I felt it going to bed: very jumpy, hard to put myself down. Bum feeling.

530 with DG + Fremont to 105th. Had to restrain myself from adding another 7 to make up for yesterday; or rather, I thought about it for a nanosecond or two and oh-so-virtuously rejected the idea. Poor sleep. Thought I was going to have to settle for about 7:30s on the return trip but once again somehow snapped into gear and ended up doing 6:20 on my last mi. Felt good to sustain a sub-6 pace for a bit, let's pretend that feels almost doable.  I think I'll do seven tomorrow and Sunday.

Splurged on some dry-fit shorts and shirt. Going for the Johnny Cash look. On the test drive, they seemed to be fairly nimble: 10k at MP+ in 42:31 (1-7:00, 2-6:48, 3-6:58, 4-6:55, 5-6:48, 6-6:43, .2-1:19). This was not at all labored and by the end felt almost like jogging (though when I tried to surge through the 6:30 barrier at about mi 5.5 I could definitely feel the effort).

Started off the taper week with 5 mi + 6 x 100m strides. I guess I was feeling a bit frisky though, they turned out more like short intervals--topping out at what Garmin claims was 16.1 mph! Probably shouldn't do too many of those before Sunday, but it was fun while it lasted, like running on springs.

One very relaxed PM lap around Greenlake, 8:00 pace. Everything feels good.

530 w DG + Fremont to 90th. Poor sleep, didn't feel great. Some weakness/soreness in the left tensor fascia latae. Took it easy.

530 with DG. Slept better, felt good.

Okay, so I'm officially freaked out. We got a load of Palm Springs going on here, sunny and 60ish, and all I can think as I do my lap around the lake before heading out to the old T-Give is: when will we pay our karmic debt to the weatherman? If it's on Sunday then I am officially bummed.

No strain no pain (actually a bit of a cramp in the same left arch, the one that always goes away by mile 3). Pace was 7:45 or so, which seems to be the new super-easy.  I think that may be more about form than fitness.

I have mixed feelings about this holiday, as anybody who's read Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower might well do, but politics aside it's good and right to give thanks. It reminds me that the self is a helpful delusion, that our being and consciousness are intertwined with family; with friends; with social relations; with whatever God or transcendent higher cause we worship; even with fastrunningblog.  Giving thanks is nothing more or less than an acknowledgement and an exaltation of our intimacy with the rest of the universe.

Here's to high quality carbo-loading! 

Rest day. Rode very hard on a cold Thanksgiving afternoon, and the right ITB was complaining; had to take a couple courses of IP to get the inflammation down. Nothing serious, but that made seven days of running without a rest, so it was probably time. Will do a couple miles tomorrow just to keep sharp. Still hoping against hope for dry weather.

Greenlake. Feeling good.

"Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs

Hang always heavy in that perfect sky..."

Many good things about this race. First, the weather. There were signs yesterday that heaven and earth had moved to accomodate us: contrary to forecast, the clouds parted and brilliant sunshine ensued. All afternoon, it was like a (frozen-over) Miami. Somewhat overcast by evening, but I peeked out this morning at 6:30 and what should I see but a full moon, the biblical levanah. I knew then that we were living large.

The next thing that was good was my ability to stick to race plan. Went out exactly at 7:45 for two miles, holding firm against the impulse to rabbit, then ranged between 7:30 and 7:15 for the up-and-down heading toward the bridge. By the bridge turnaround (mi 6) packs had started to form, and I was in about the fifth or sixth one, going a pretty steady 7:05. I felt great. Totally within myself, spectacular scenery along Lake Washington boulevard. What's not to like? We cruised around Seward Park, hit the halfway point at 1:34:30, and by then big thoughts are flitting through my frontal cortex. Someone said I was in 47th place.

Alas! At mi 18, a very weird signal emerged from the second metatarsal in My Left Foot. Apparent neuropathy. Serious numbness going on, and while still runnable, it began to mess up my mechanics. I was putting out more and more energy with less and less gain, and it was energy that I just didn't have in reserve  My splits crept inexorably upward: 7:40ish on mile 18, 7:50 on mile 19. Then on mile 20 I hit my Waterloo. Things Fell Apart. Dale had caught up with me at this juncture, but I was more or less cocooned in survival mode. By the (vicious, nasty, unforgivable) Galer hill at mi 21, the race crew had stopped telling me "right on, great time!" and was now giving me the old lady cheer: "you're doing great! Hang in there!" I hit the last 10k at 2:41-something, and my BQ had turned into a pumpkin; now the goal was simply not to walk. 

So there you have it: a six mile jog (using the term loosely) that ranked up there with the Minnow's three hour tour for overall time-efficiency. And yet, I can't imagine any track workout that could possibly have taken more out of my musculo-skeletal system than that 9:30-10:00 pace. When I hit the last hill (the race designers very thoughtfully penciled in a 5% grade more or less to the finish line) my legs felt like the floor of the pit at CBGBs after a Sex Pistols show. My calves felt like the crash dummy in a Lamborghini factory. My foot felt like--well, I couldn't feel my foot.

Anyway, I guess I'm going to have to get it checked out; feels better, but still a bit numb/sore. Assume it's there's some kind of pinching action in the foot bones at the end of the sciatica. Moreover, immediately after crossing the finish line I could barely walk, which I assume means that I was running with low glycogen stores.

Injury aside, the soreness does suggest to me that I needed more training to improve efficiency of glycogen storage, and probably a more thoughtful carbo-loading program as well. Possibly I overdid it on the first half, though in any case I don't think I could have made the BQ with anything slower than that 1:34 half, so it's probably a moot point. All in all, I feel pretty good about this, Baby's First Marathon. I had a nice strong start, I persevered through some adverse conditions, and I ended up with a respectable time after two months of serious training. My private aim was somewhere between 3:30 and 3:15, and having made that target I think I can now sleep the nap of the blessed.

I'd insert my splits here, but left the Garmin on auto-stop, and it helpfully put everything on hold whenever I ran through a tunnel, next to a tree, or in the shadow of a porta-potty. The race crew was pretty good about calling out splits, but after the Great Toe Revolt of Mile 16 my recall less than perfect. 1-2 averaged 7:45, mile 4 clocked in exactly at 30, I think mile 6 was 45:50, and then I averaged between 6:55 and 7:05 up to mi 18.

Major congratulations to Dale, who ran a great race and got his BQ. I'm not surprised at all given the quality of his training. As for me, wait till next year saith Leo Durocher.

Regular rest day. Only real lingering soreness is in the adductors, specifically I think the pectinius, right by the pelvis. Never felt it there before (which probably means that I wasn't working it hard enough). Combined with the fact that the left foot now feels fine, I think my day-after analysis would be that I slowed at mi 16 simply because I wore down and leg lift decreased rather than any specific injury-related mechanical defect. The "numb foot" was just one of those things you fix on while looking down from The Wall.

Had a good bike ride this morning, and felt pretty good. Look forward to regular run with DG tomorrow.  Thanks to everyone for your encouraging and helpful comments.

Greenlake with DG. Calves a bit sore--told him we couldn't stop for the Aurora traffic light, or I'd never get going again--but not too bad.

Stomach flu. Bad news.