Bret

AM - a little over 5 miles this morning with Finn.  Parked at Wood Rd. but ran up Freemanville and ran the Summit trail and then looped back down Phillips Circle and added maybe a half mile on the Milton Trail before turning back.  I think Finn was a bit tired today - with two runs in a row of over 5 miles because instead of being always directly in front of me, he was more at my side than normal.  

AM - 3 miles on the trail with Finn.  He was not feeling well all day yesterday after our run, so I used him as an excuse to run a little shorter today.

AM - 4.5 miles with Dan and Finn from Milton HS and through Crabapple.  Decent pacing - slightly faster than normal with Dan.  I don't feel great - just a little fatigue/lack of pop or strength but not sick and no injuries.   

AM - 4.25 miles with Dan and Finn very early because I had a dentist appointment.  Decent run - just maintaining.  

AM - 8.5 miles with Finn and Dan and a new coworker of Dan's named Darrell. We started from my house did a loop around the trail with Finn and then dropped him off at the house to run a few more miles in the neighborhood. At one point I had stopped my watch and forgot to restart it but the total mileage on Dan's watch was 8.5. Enjoyed meeting Darrell who is a bit younger and more of a triathlete than a runner - but very fit and I enjoyed the conversation and a new member of our Saturday morning running group.  

AM - 4.25 miles with Dan and Finn early before church.  Lots of aches and pains - Might be the Covid or Flu vaccine that I got yesterday or the Zetia I tried to resume yesterday - either way I am gonna take a zetia / statin holiday for a week or so leading up to Chicago.  

AM - in NYC for business - got in yesterday evening.  Began the run very easy - had a couple of bumpy steps with the outside of the left foot - but just ran easy and smoothly - and had a decent run today - most achiness was gone by the end and I felt pleased with the low HR and decent pace. 

AM - 6.75 miles from my hotel up Lexington to around 79th and over to the Park at the Met and around the reservoir back down on the west side.  Ran very well today - felt very little achiness and my pace the last few miles was sub 8 but at an HR effort that was only in the 140's.  I think 2 things contributed to this:  Statin holiday (day 2) and the temps were fall-like and dry in the lower 50s.   Plus I got over 8 hours of sleep.  

AM - 4 miles from the hotel into Central Park again - pace has been easy but much faster than usual.  

AM - 3.25 miles very early before a flight back to ATL.  Very quick pace again. Really liking this.  

AM - 3.75 miles more or less with Dan and Finn on the Milton Trail.   Wanted to keep it easy and short with Chicago on Sunday.   My plan is to run with whatever Richie feels like doing.  Lately, he's been in the mindset and fitness effort of running at 9 min pace for for the last few marathons as he works his way back to full fitness.  I think he is hesitant to push the limit given the TIA he had in Boston a couple of years ago now.   Looking at his Strava logs - he's done a decent amount of training, but not too many fast miles and the last couple of weeks with two hurricanes impacting his home - he's had more important things than running to deal with.  So I suspect that's the pace we will be running on Sunday.

I actually feel as though I could run much faster than that - assuming race conditions are good and I feel strong.  But at this point in my running / marathon racing - it is more about the social experience.  We don't run these races together to separate from each other as soon as the gun goes off...mostly we run together for as long as we can.  Sometimes one or both of us (or group of us) is nursing an injury or illness - and so we run at the pace that works for everyone.  Sometimes that means we don't necessarily finish together if things start to fall apart in the later miles but that's ok too.  

AM - 2 mile shake-out in Chicago ahead of the marathon tomorrow.  Richie had to bail as his home in St. Pete is still without power and was not expected to have power until Tuesday.  He has a small generator but did not feel right about leaving his family for the race - and that's completely understandible.  So, I will run "solo" tomorrow. 

Chicago Marathon - I was pleased that I had a reasonably good day of "racing."   I put that in quotes because I am long past my days of running my best times in marathons at my age - but today was a reasonably good showing particularly since I had such a rough first half of the year with illness and injuries.   I had expected to run with Richie at perhaps a 9 min pace or thereabout to enjoy the day together, but he had to cancel and stay at his home in St. Pete which is still without power from the damage of hurricane Milton.   So, I had a decision to make - run at that same pace, or just run to "feel" and see what the day gives me.  I ended up doing the latter - after the first couple of miles had me running in the low 8 min per mile pace.  I decided to set an alert on my watch if my heartrate exceeded 150 - and I was able to manage to run at that pace for the majority of the miles in the upper 140's bpm.   

It was a little challenging to keep myself from just running with the crowd - as I would get pulled along after the 10k mark and see that my hr alert would go off, and so I would slow down slightly - yet still I was ticking-off 8:05 to 8:07 per mile like a metronome.   

Somewhere around mile 12 or 13 mile the airpod's batteries were nearly dead and I put them in the case.  I rarely run with them, but in a loud and chaotic race like this with no one to run with as a partner, I find them helpful to isolate and concentrate on staying in the right zone.   It was shortly after this, that I noticed that my gait felt a little bit off as I approached mile 15 and a female runner alerted me to it.  She said, "you are starting to lean to your right."  I had this happen to me in Tokyo in March and I think it may have happened a little bit at Grandma's in June.  So I slowed down a little bit and tried really hard to concentrate on keeping myself vertically aligned.  

Around mile 20 or so, I could feel that I was losing that battle - though I was not in any pain - I just noticed things were "off."   I think I made things a little worse because starting around mile 22 I ceased the effort of keeping my HR under 150 and figured I could get myself to the finish line however wonky my gait, and with my HR approaching threshold if it was only for another 4 miles.   

Pace slowed a bit in the final stretch which was into a fairly stiff headwind of about 15 mph - and the last 800 meters up the bridge and down to the finish showed my pace at over 9 mins for the first time.

I was in good spirits afterward having been rewarded with a 3:42 time - which frankly I think was my best time since November 2022 in NYC, and nearly 2 hours faster than the debilitated Tokyo marathon this past March.  I ran 4:06 in June this year at Grandmas - so this was a good progression of fitness over 8-10 months.  

Photos after the race that came in - show a sharp right lean - so that's a little disappointing - And I am a little more fatigued than I expected to be but all in all - it was a good day.   

AM - 2 mile jog on the trail with Dan and the dogs.  Left hip was very tight when I awoke, but was not painful to run.  I will give it a few days to allow the post marathon inflamation to subside.   Even take a day or two off. 

AM - 2.5 mile walk with Finn through the neighborhood.   I did the walking recovery thing after the last marathon in June and by day 3 or 4 - with the exception of an injury that I had before the race, everything felt fully recovered - pain and inflammation all significantly subsided.   Hoping the same happens with this approach.  

AM - 1.5 mile walk with Finn in the neighborhood - temps were possibly below 40 degrees this morning.   Feeling much less inflammation and soreness today.   May give it another day or two of non-running to allow further recovery.  

AM - 1.5 mile walk again this morning with Finn.  Probably could have run - but thought I would take another day off to give a little more recovery time. 

AM - 3.75 miles with Dan and Finn on the Milton Trail.   Temps in the upper 30's - feels like we skipped a gradual cool down.  Good easy run and conversation as Dan was out of town for most of this week.   Everything felt fine running wise, though my left glute feels like it is bruised - as if I had some kind of impact to it.  Weird.   I am sure it is lingering soreness from the marathon and the awkward forward and lateral leaning late in the race.  

AM - 4.5 miles with the guys from Downtown and through Avalon and the new trail that Greg showed us a few weeks ago.  Legs were a bit heavy and the soreness in my glute was there, but not impactful to the effort of running.  Decent run - and Dan and Daryl went ahead and added some more miles after Greg and I finished.  So, I decided to discontinue the statin for a couple of days to see if that was causing the issue.

AM - 4 miles with Finn before church.   Almost zero pain/stiffness in the left glute after not taking the statin yesterday.   Finn unfortunately had a seizure about an hour after we ran.   Concerned for his condition.   He's not had a seizure since June when he was place on medication.   If he has more, we will consult with the vet to see if he needs to increase the dosage which as I understand is quite minimal.   

AM - 4.25 miles with Dan and Finn from Milton HS and through Crabapple.   A bit warmer in the upper 40's.  Zero pain or discomfort anywhere since cessation of the statin on Saturday.   Ran fairly quickly too.   Finn did well, and did not have any seizures post run so far.  

AM - 4.5 miles with Dan and Finn on the WC Golf Course.  

AM - 5.25 miles from Dan's house with Finn along the horsefarm trail roads.   Temps up into the low 50's today - very pleasant for running.   Resumed the statin yesterday and have had no muscle soreness, myalgia or faux injury pain at least as of today.  Will continue with it day by day until a few days before the NYC marathon.  Since I am going to be running with my two daughters at their pace, the effort / intensity will be much less than normal for me and so I would expect to resume the statin a few days after the race. 

AM - 4.5 miles on the trail with Dan and Finn.  Lots of construction / new development being done on the trail after the first mile or so.  They are building a waterway/dam connection from the ponds to Chicken Creek in addition to building out the trail from the ponds to Dinsmore.  We went into the back woods and found that they had removed and created a huge swath for new trail to be constructed on the upper portion too.   All of this was of course blocked with signage and "crime scene" tape, but we were undeterred.   

AM - 4.5 miles with Dan and Finn from Milton HS and through Crabapple.  

AM - 9 miles with Dan and Daryl.  First 3 were with Finn - who I dropped off back at the house to keep his mileage volume modest.   Good run with the guys - beautiful fall weather conditions and colors.

AM - just under 3.5 miles with Dan and the dogs on the trail.  Dan was told by the vet that his dog Rosie was overweight and needed more exercise and less treats - and because she hates to run on a leash, and actually does reasonably well off-leash on the trail, this was good for her today.   He doesn't expect us to do the trail everyday for her, and will get her some exercise with a walk in the evening if a run is not in the cards in the mornings.

AM - 5 miles with Dan and Finn through the neighborhood and across Birmingham to the Groves and back.  Dan could not persuade Rosie to come with him to run - though I would have done a trail run again if it helped.   Traveling early tomorrow to NYC for meeetings - so probably no run tomorrow morning beforehand.

AM - 1 mile with Finn to give him some exercise, but very early because of a flight - so no time for anything longer.

AM - 4.75 miles from my hotel in NYC up the Hudson River run/bike trail to about 70th and over to Columbus Circle and back.   Felt a little off, but my pace was good.

AM - 3.5 miles on the trail with Dan and the dogs.