Chaire Herodikos Selymbriaios!

Just as a morale-builder, I'm going to start counting the elliptical "miles." So: 30 minutes with resistance on 8, 160+ s/min, with a 4 min warmup and cooldown on 110 s/m. Machine claims that equals 4 miles (from the feeling in my quads, must be four miles on jupiter or something). Sweat keeps on mucking up the HR monitor, but I think I peaked at 175 and averaged 155 or so.

Slept with The Sock last night and heel/ankle felt pretty good today, which is encouraging. Going to try running five or six easy miles every other day and elliptifying on the off days, see where a week of that leaves me. I've really been missing actual running.

5 miles at the track staying strictly between 9:30 and 10:00 miles. Was planning to do 6, but felt a small ache and cut it short. Nothing to worry about, though: medial ankle and foot a little tight afterwards, but basically good. This is exciting.

At that pace I could also pay more attention to running form: when it was really good I had to slow down all over again, with more or less the same expenditure of effort. This reinforces a thought I had yesterday on the elliptical trainer, to wit, I've been going way too fast. On every run I would always come out blazing, and basically do an LT/tempo or even anaerobic workout every time. When I was at three or four days a week that was more or less OK, though it may have built too much leg muscle too fast and contributed to the foot problems, as well as retarding CV development. But it was totally unsustainable at higher rates of activity. Interestingly, the habit carried over when I was confined to the gym, where I would crank the resistance up and habitually work out at 80-90% of max HR--as if that was "better."  Not.

So a toast to more thoughtful training. Didn't get as far in 45 minutes as I usually would in the past, but it felt just as good. One tempo a week is plenty.

Five and a half "miles" on the elliptical trainer. Kept HR between 130 and 140 while increasing resistance gradually from 6 to 12 over the course of 45 min, which seemed like a pretty good way of feeling my way toward a stable easy HR. Foot feels pretty good. Run around greenlake tomorrow..

Biked 13 mi.

Planning to run Greenlake with Michael but he was pretty hung over and the foot was sore four days after resuming regular workouts, so today was off. Biked 21.3 miles.

Was looking at some race photos. In each and every one I'm puckered up like I've just been goosed. So today at the track I decided to work on my race face. The problem is that I usually find my rhythm by breathing, which naturally causes a kind of lip-pucker. The alternative is humming something under my breath, but with all due respect to Gospodin Pachev it needed to be suitable for a bachelor: no B-I-N-G-O for me. Reviews follow.

"Let's Fall In Love"-- Not bad. Syllables on the downbeat with modest syncopation. Runs pretty well.

"The Guns of Brixton"-- Probably the best. Strong, clear, repetitive melody. Trochees, with the stress on the downbeat. Fast paced. Top notch.

"My Funny Valentine"--Surprisingly effective. You have to butcher the song quite a bit to get it to work, of course.

"Mr. Paganini"--Awful! Syncopation, irregular syllables. Swing is not good for runners. Totally got me off my stride.

"A Tisket a Tasket"--Well, it worked, but (a) it made me run too fast, and (b) I felt really stupid muttering about that little yellow basket I lost.

"What Does The Deep Sea Say"--Excellent. Strong downbeat on 1, easy syncopation, then downbeat on three and four. Good old Doc Watson.

The run itself was pretty good. Walked half a mile, then jogged to the track. The arch felt super tight at first; I had to stop a couple of times and stretch. After that it gave me a few warning twinges (not pain, just the tight feeling) whenever I got much above 9:00 miles for any extended period, so I tried to stay in the 9:10 range. We'll see how it is later this evening.

With the half-mile warmup and cooldown walk, 6 miles and 1:02 in all.

Five "miles" on the elliptical. Fitness slowly returning toward late April levels. Resistance 8, warmup 800 at 140 s/m then 4 mi @ 170 s/m which works out to (according to their calculator) about 8:30 miles, sprinting the last 800 at 220 s/m then cooldown at 120 or so. HR averaged 160 and seemed to increase at a slow, steady rate throughout the workout, topping out at 190 after two-minute sprint.

Felix Hernandez has another tough outing. Nice inside-th-park homer by Bloomquist though.

Pushing the pace ever so slightly. Warmup 10's to the track, then five mi of 8:45 or so then another 10 home with a 5-min walk down to the beach. Teh first mile (8:30) HR was around 143, inched up a bit thereafter but not too much (last mile was 148).

Test drove "How High the Moon" and "Lullaby of Birdland," which weren't bad. Then started fooling around with my own cadence and came up with (E minorish):

0---0-----0-0---|0-0-0--0O-------|0---0-----0-0---|0-0-O000O-------|

1    2        3  2    1  1  7   15(down) 1     2        3 2    1   1  54321

Did the job.

Highest mileage week so far, if you count the gym workouts. One more week of alternating days then let's start running back to back. Tempos on the elliptical, though, until the inflammation is in the rearview mirror.