track fan

1:59:54 (1:02:42/57:11) 8:33 AP (8:57/8:10).  Same ole same ole.  Hot, sunny, I don't know what it was when I started but it was 92F when I finished, no shade, just me and the trail and the sun.  Speaking of which, did any of you see the eclipse?  I didn't, because I thought it was "last night" (really early in the morning) and it was the night before!  I am a dork.  

Congratulations to Roes and Arbogast (men's and women's winners of the Western States 100) and all the athletes! what an accomplishment.  Roe annihilated the course record (Mehgan Arbogast was/is a famous marathoner-she has run in the Olympic Trials at least 5 times I believe).  One of my friends, Amy Dodson, was prematurely pulled from the course about 35 miles in, she still does not know why and is protesting the action.  It is really maddening, Amy lost a leg and a lung to cancer and is a phenomenal runner, she says she was not near any aid station with a cut-off time and was still well below the next cut-off time ... hrrrrumph!  I can't even imagine how angry she must be.

Also, congratulations to Anna Willard (Pierce) on being the new USA 1500 meter champion.  And wow Chaunte Howard (Lowe) broke her own American high jump record yesterday, and then went and took second place in the triple jump!

I hope you are all having a wonderful day of rest and  enjoy your time with your family!

AM: (10 hilly miles, 1:26:53).  Ouch.  25:49wu/28:33cd ~4 mile SS ( ran hard for 32:28).  It was very hot (89F at the start, and wunderground says the wind was 20 mph (felt worse than that sometimes).  I wanted to run for about 5 miles (estimated 37 mins or so), but because of the conditions I opted for fewer fast miles and decided to just run for 30 mins hard.  Felt a little whoozy and sick near the end.  I was running by feel but the heat, the hills and the wind just conspired against me ;-).  All is good though, it was a solid effort and I am glad I did it, I groaned when the alarm went off at 5AM and they said it was already 82F out.

PM: 4 miles easy.

Almost done with my grant -- well, I got a first draft finished, now I have to edit and rework. It looks much better than my initial submission last year.  Fingers crossed.

Have a great day bloggers! 

1:02:04.  The usual in terms of weather and road conditions (hot and hilly).  So, "irony" - when you run an alternate route to avoid snakes and then come within 2 cm of stepping on one on the alternate route.  This was pretty scary.  I was not paying attention really, I was thinking about this last bit that I have to write on my grant and by the time I saw him/her I almost stepped on its rattle ... it actually was up and in striking position too -- yikes.  So this new route is a hilly dirt road wide enough for one car so it is a little safer than a trail where if you see a snake you might not have anywhere to go (rather than over them).  I sped up quite a bit after this, adrenaline I think ;-).

Have a good day bloggers! 

Congratulations to our own Samantha Howard, her Bengal kittie had *7* kittens in the wee hours of the morning yesterday. Mom and "kitty Mom" are doing well ;) 

AM: (9 miles, 1:15:05).  27:04wu/26:42cd 11 x 200m w/200 recovery.  Greg said to do 10-15, I wanted to do 15 but it was 94F and sunny with 10 mph winds... it was painfully  hot.  I meant to do 12 (as a compromise) but somehow I must have miscounted.  The 3 miles uphill home was almost indescribably miserable.  It really is a tough climb under the best of circumstances, and when it is this hot it is even worse.  Dean always says, "you just can't be in a hurry".  So, my body and mind were at odds.  My body knew that I was bordering on dangerously overheating, but my mind wanted to get out of the sun so badly.  So I would speed up and then feel sick to my stomach and slow down ... and this coupled with the fact I wanted to try to find a saguaro cactus or telephone pole to stand in its shade made it a not very fun run.  When I looked over my splits I realized in part it was because I did not slow down enough on my recovery bits.  My splits ranged from 46-50 and then :59-1:06 for the recovery (with most of the splits at :49/1:02  -- almost 6 of them!).  I thought that starting at one end of the track would be better (because of the wind, but the first 2 laps -- which were the :50s by the way -- were really tough with a headwind down the back stretch; I realized that starting into the wind around the curve was easier, so I started in a different spot after the second one).  I am very glad this run is over -- and that I won't be running in this kind of heat for 4 weeks!  By the way, this was at 7AM!!  we overslept (the alarm did not go off this morning) -- it was already 88F at 6AM when I jumped out of bed all freaked out.

PM: (4 miles easy).

 Have to go work on my grant a little and this afternoon we have to close up our house, get things packed and get ready to go to Flagstaff tomorrow!!  We wanted to leave today, but we have things to do and it is way to hot to be starting out after about 9AM.  There are a lot of mountains to climb and you can't usually run your air conditioner when you climb them, last year it was about 116 and we had the dogs and they had a rough time in the heat.  So .... we will get an early start tomorrow instead.  YIPPPEE.

I hope you are all having a wonderful start of the fiscal year ;-).  We have to pick the days we are taking for our furlough ... I am going to be making a political statement, I hope I don't get fired. 

1:01:40 ... I did an abbreviated version of my usual Saturday run.  I took an organic apple that a friend of mine had given me because there is a very cool horse that I see on this run.  He "ran" with me one day (he ran in his area along side me ... so I stopped to pet him, he is very friendly (but HUGE, so a little intimidating to me).  Anyway, I decided to solidifying our friendship with an apple -- he seemed to really like it.  I hope he remembers me after 5 weeks of not seeing me.

Well, we're outta here!  See you in the cool pines -- I am trading relentless heat for no oxygen (we will soon be at 7000ft) - a fair trade I think!

Have a wonderful Friday bloggers.

Oh, I finally found a good chiro and got my SI joint put back in place yesterday, I can't tell you how much better I feel.

AM: (8.5 miles, 1:17:35).  Our house for the next 4 weeks is right on the pipeline trail -- very very nice.   Today I ran on the trail for about 1.5 miles to Buffalo Park, and then did 2.5+ laps (5.5 miles, each lap is 2 miles but I cut off a .5 mile section the last one) and came back.  This is awesome.  I had some problems on the uphills, but overall I just slowed down and the altitude did not bother me too much (Buffalo Park is marked every 1/4 mile, I was at 9min/mile or slightly under the first lap and a tiny bit faster than that the second; this surprised me, I guess I am running a little faster than 9 min pace on my usual runs, because I definitely was taking it easy on this run. 

PM: (3.5 miles even easier). 

Greg has me running doubles every day this coming week, they were supposed to be short, I think to acclimate to the altitude, but I will ask him tomorrow (at the team BBQ) if I need to do that if I am doing ok.  But either way, I am SOOOO happy I can sleep in and still run in nice temps!

Happy Weekend bloggers!!