Bret

AM - easy untimed 6 miles before work this morning.  Always uncomfortable when you need to go to the bathroom a mile into a 6 mile run...

PM - lunchtime - 6 more.  Ran over by the Clw/St. Pete Airport for a change of scenery.  Not much there in terms of running options and the old Airco Golf Course long since closed and abandonned looks depressing a creepy. 

AM - 4.5 easy before work.

PM -  9 miles on the treadmill - workout of 2 mile warm-up then 6 x 1000 at 6:40 pace with a 600 rest at 7:13 pace; 1 mile cool down.  Similar to last week's workout but I increased the length of the "on" rep from 800 to 1000 and reduced the rest rep from 800 to 600.  Surprisingly more challenging.  Pretty spent at the end of the day; need to do some easy running the remainder of the week.  15k Race on Saturday.

AM - verrry easy 5 miles this morning.  Feeling a bit of training fatigue - debating on how much running to do the rest of the week...

PM - lunchtime - 7 more around Carillon and Feathersound.  Felt ok until about 6 miles when I think the heat started to affect me.  Mid 80's today.

AM - easy 4 miles on a foggy muggy morning.

PM - lunchtime - did a small sharpening workout - 6 x 200 @ about 40-42 secs each with a 200 rest; 2 mile warm up and 1.5 mile cool down.  Purposely did not crush these - but wanted to do something to get some pop or snap into my legs before Saturday's race.  Actually pretty enjoyable workout.

AM - 5 miles easy with 6 striders before work.  Very warm humid and muggy again - can expect the same tomorrow morning at race time.  Too bad, there is actually a cold front coming through late in the day tomorrow and early Sunday, and not today.  Should be good for those in the half marathon and 8k for Sunday if the storms clear out before the race.  

Anyway - I felt a little flat this morning so did some surges and the striders to notch up the muscle tension a bit to feel sharp for tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes.  Lots of friends and acquaintances running this year.  Look forward to seeing them and hanging out afterwards.  

Richie and I are heading over to the expo to pick up our race packets at lunchtime today.  Read in the paper where Bill Rodgers and Joan Benoit Samuelson are running the 15k again this year.     

Bit of a disappointment this morning - felt "off" by the second mile on a very humid (96%) warm and windy day.  Knew my planned pace of 6:24 was not going to happen after about the third mile  when I was right at 6:27 pace through 5k; and with a 6:47 mile at 4th, I just decided to convert this race into a tempo run at slightly faster than marathon pace.  I did that through mile 7 (avg'd 6:44) and then shut it down and basically did a cool down for the last two miles. 

Richie paced our mutual friend Steve - who wanted to average 7 min pace - and did well thrugh 6 miles but had to dial it back for the last three miles and ended up running about 1:10. 

Saw my friend Ken during the race as he paced his neighbor through at just over 8 min pace and we gathered at Four Green Fields after the race to catch up.

Not sure what to make of my performance this morning - my training has been good to date and though I felt a bit fatigued late in the week, I did not expect it to have that much of an effect.  Guess I will just chalk it up to having an off day and look forward to the next race.

 ** As a post script to this - in looking at the age group results  (if accurate) - had I finished out the last 2 miles on pace - I may have ended up in the top 5 - with no runners under 1 hour for this age division; which is perhaps an indication of how the conditions seemed to have had an effect quite a few.