It's over, man. Let her go.

I'm officially sick.  My wife had some slow to recover from virus a few weeks ago.  I get home from scout camp Friday night not feeling that great.  Sore throat was the biggest complaint.  Yesterday, it continued to get worse.  I'll blame my lack of energy and lackluster run yesterday on that.  Last night was bad.  Today, even worse.  I think I'm going to die.  lol

I know most of you out on the west coast didn't hear about this, but I know the rumor has been going around the blog, so let me just come clean.  My running has been so sporadic and inconsistent because I was caught.  I'm only allowed so many minutes a day in "the yard" and so I have to really push to get the miles in.

I hope to get some solid miles this week even with the added weight of the ankle bracelet.  Hope it doesn't throw off my form too much.

I'm getting over this stupid virus or whatever it is!  I'm still really congested and "stuff" but I'm getting better.  I didn't run yesterday and just worked from home which was fine, but I missed getting in a run.  Today, my wife dropped me off at work.  She was concerned about me parking and walking the 1.5mi to work when I was sick, and told me she'd come and pick me up when I was done.  I'm not one to stay down when I'm sick or recovering from injury or surgery, and my wife knows it.  I think she was a little suspicious of the gym bag but she didn't say anything.  The day was going to be perfect (mid-70s & 40% humidity) so I took my running clothes with the intent to run during lunch, but work was killer busy and I didn't get a chance to even run out and get a sandwich to bring back to the desk until 2:20pm, just in time for my 2:30 meeting.  My choices were to either go to the gym, run, then have the wife pick me up.  Or leave the laptop, backpack, etc. and just run home. :-) 

Since I had put in 13 hours and really needed a break from work, I ran home.  I took the flatter route which is about 3/4 mi longer, but I had my phone in case I needed to call in the cavalry.  The first 1/2mi I could feel the fatigue from being sick, so I decided to just take it easy and keep the HR under 160.  The first 3.5 mi or so is flat along the river, then up a hill, some flat, then down the hill to the house.  I did great keeping it under 160 and had a pace of about 8:30-8:45.  I walked part of the uphill just to keep it reasonable since I really didn't want to stress the system and trying to keep it under 160 on a hill is really just a fast walk.  I finished fine and felt good.  No issues with the muscle like Saturday, so I think the stretching fixed whatever brought that back on.

Commentary:  There was a kid (20-something) that passed me about 1.5mi into my run.  He looked over at me as he passed, not to smile and say hi, though.  He just looked me up and down and continued on.  I didn't care and just kept at my same pace.  On a normal day, I would have matched his pace and tried to see how long I could hold on.  It wasn't much faster than my easy pace, so I would have hung on fine.  Today, I was about keeping it real.  About 10m in front of me, he slowed to just faster than my pace.  At first, I thought maybe it was my imagination and pride that he was sizing me up, but about 2 mins after passing me and being maybe 20m in front of me, he turned around to check and see where I was at.

About a minute after that, he turned around and headed back.  Looking at my garmin, I was 2.0mi into my run and knowing I wasn't even half way, I just kind of laughed to myself.  You're the champion, buddy.  I find this funny because on my runs, especially my training runs, I always try and say "hi" or "mornin'" or "hello," along with a nod or quick wave.  I even try to muster a smile!  This is whether I'm passing them in the same direction or not.  I never really try and size up my competition even during races.  Maybe it's my mentality that where I'm at in the pack we're all just fighting to do our best and I'm not thinking about being in competition for an AG place.  I just want a nice PR!  That's why I don't mind being polite as I pass or am passed.  Now, once someone has passed me or if I see someone up ahead that I think I can catch, I try and go after them.  Not because they passed me, but to try and challenge myself and see if I can maintain their pace.  So, it's kinda humorous to me that a 20-something was sizing up a 39 1/2 year old balding dude running a 8:30 pace.  He probably thought it was humorous and probably somewhat pathetic that I didn't chase him...or maybe that I couldn't chase him.

The run was almost boring after the runner left me.  Good thing I had my trusty 1GB iPod Nano to keep me company.  I'm glad to be back in the swing of things and am looking for a nice consistent week!  Now I have to go because my son is begging me to get off my blog and come watch a movie with him.  I'm hoping he will be up for a Disney Princess movie since those are my favorites!!  haha

I biked to and from work today (12 mi total), but felt bad I didn't run, so before leaving for my bike ride home, I ran a couple of miles.  It was such a nice day I couldn't pass it up.  Plus, I didn't want to put a 0 in the miles for today.  :-)

My quads were feeling it tonight, a little soreness in the knees (probably from the different muscle/tendon usage in them from biking, I would assume), and some pain that comes and goes in my right hip.  No problems with the outside of my shin, which is muy bueno.  The pain in my hip is right in front.  If you're sitting and poke your finger into your "hip" right where the bend is, that's where it is.  I need to figure out what that is so I can stretch it.  I think it might be the IT Band that people talk about.  I'll feel like a real runner if I can say I have an ITB issue.  lol

Still kinda sick, but I'm getting better.  I'll be biking it the rest of this week and hope to be mostly over this illness by Saturday when I am planning a 8+ miler.

Biked to and from work today, so another 11.5 miles or so.  I wasn't planning on running today, but the kids wanted to go for a bike ride and since I knew my son would be slow due to his developing skills, I decided I'd run beside him.  He was plenty slow and I probably shouldn't really even count the miles since it was more of a jog...wait...jog...wait..."take a break"...jog...

Did some stretching as was suggested and it seems to be helping.  Glad it's not ITB...or IBS for that matter!  :-)

Today was a biking day.  Rode to and from work.  The end.

You want more?  Ok, today's entry is titled:  "Hey Mayflies, it's JULY!"

On my ride to work today at about 7am, I came to the trail that runs by the river.  I ride the trail to work since it's flat, no traffic, and it's relaxing by the river.  As I turned onto the trail head, about 15m in front of me, I see what looks like the whole trail covered with small leaves.  I don't think much of it, except to think, "I wonder why the trees dropped so many leaves all of a sudden.  After the first few seconds of running over the "leaves" and hearing them "pop,"  I looked down and realized that they weren't leaves at all, but mayflies!  None of them moved or flinched as I approached, "popped" them, or as I went by.  I felt really bad for them, but they were everywhere and I couldn't avoid them.

After about 100m of that, they became more sporadic and from there until I got to work, I saw less and less.  I don't know how many I killed today, but they should have known it's July and not May.

We went to the Pirates game tonight at the last minute.  We won, but the cool part of the evening was that near the end of the game when the lights were on, you could see the mayflies swarming the lights.  I'll blame the malfunction of the bug's clocks on global warming.  Or maybe on all the Phillies fans that came to the game tonight.  Sorry to hand you your second loss in as many games here in Pittsburgh.  Let's see if we can beat you two more while you're here.

Daughter biked while I ran.  Took a flat route running along the river trail.