Bret

AM - got a late start this morning, but got 8 hours of sleep.  10 miles easy, south on County Rd 1 to Spanish Hills and then back North on Belcher with a loop through my neighborhood.  Stayed mostly shaded and actually the temp and humidity with a cool breeze made this a much more comfortable run than when I ran before sunrise on Saturday.  Did core/plyo work for 40 mins after and am headed now to a barbeque for the holiday with friends in Tampa.

AM - easy 3 mile run followed by 40 mins of core/plyos.  Will do a workout at lunch for my main set today.

PM - Lunchtime on the treadmill - 12 min warm up then 3 miles at Threshold pace (6:22); 5 min rest at 7:45 pace; 2 miles at T pace; 4 min rest at 7:45 pace; 1 mile at T pace; 10 mins at 7:45 pace.  Total was about 9.5 miles.  Good workout.  I had planned to do an interval at 1.5 miles before the 1 mile but was feeling the stress of the workout and it would have added enough time for me to stress out getting back to my desk in time for a call, so I skipped it.  Still got six quality miles in and was pleased with the my ability to manage that pace / volume.

AM - easy core/plyos routine for 40 mins.  Quite sore this morning - could be from yesterday's workouts or could be because we played kickball on Monday at a Memorial Day barbeque.  Yes - kickball.  Doesn't seem strenous but I suppose when we reach our 40's, if it involves using muscles in a different way than we are used to, then it can have an effect.   Delayed onset of muscle soreness.  Had not played the game in years, but it was good time and just about anyone can play.  Anyway, it kept me from getting out of bed early enough to do a run and core work.

PM - lunchtime run outside around Carillon office park.  Summertime thunderstorm built up rather quickly and cut my run short at 4.5 miles with high winds, lightning and rain.  But it was fun too. 

Will try to get another run in later after work today.

AM - 4.0 miles easy around the PHU loop from my house.  Then 40 mins of core/plyos.  Quads are still sore - so I did not do the second run yesterday evening. 

PM - 6 miles easy around Carillon and Feathersound. Much hotter today than yesterday when it rained.  Pretty heavy legged again today.

Hard to call this a race report as it really was more of a training workout - where I just wanted to see how much I would be able to push through without really being rested for a race.  I have been putting in miles and daily core/strength work over the last two weeks and did not take any time off to rest for this workout.   I was indeed pretty fatigued and sore before the race.

This is a series of 4 races over the summer on Clearwater Beach.  They have been doing these races for years.  Generally pretty fun, but tough to run very fast due to holes, water, soft sand, other non-racing beach patrons wandering into your path etc.  Not to mention the Florida heat at 7 pm.  Every now and then if a storm blows through to cool things off and hardens the sand well, I can get a decent time. 

Anyway, I arrived a little later than expected, but ran 3 miles to warm up which with the temps in the upper 80's with high humidity did not take long.  I sort of mistimed the warm up such that I began to be concerned that I would not get back to the starting line on time, so had to run at a pretty quick pace to get lined up.  As it turned out, the "kid's mile" took a little longer than expected so I ended having about 4 minutes to spare at the start. Several high school runners jumped out into a pretty stiff headwind of about 10 miles per hour -(oh to be so young and strong) and for some reason I thought I was feeling ok and never glanced at my watch except one time just before the mile marker.  I was surprised to see that my heartrate was nearly maxed and I was only running about a 6:16 mile pace.  I could tell I was blowing up, so I just held on to the turn around with my HR in uncharted territory (mid 180's) - and decided to see what I could do to bring it down and still not lose too much on pace.  Well,  with the wind now at my back at just about the pace I was running, it only made my body temp feel higher and so the HR stayed up and I just slowed to about MP for the rest of the way in.  Pretty sure the race conditions did me in, having just done a treadmill workout at 6:18 pace for three miles earlier in the week. 

I find it remarkable how profound an effect the heat has on my performance as I get older. 

Did an easy 3 mile cool down and stopped to see my daughter at the Palm Pavillon where she has a summer job as a hostess.  Saw an old friend Dave Batten who works there - he and I ran together in high school.  He told me his older brother Keith just ran 16:35 last week in Tampa - He's going to give me his contact information - to maybe do a run together.  

Planning to do road 5k next Friday and then back on the beach the week after - will be interesting to compare times over the next couple of weeks.

PM - plan was to do a long run today - but my morning would not permit for it.  Friends of ours have a son in the Marines who returned from a tour in Afghanistan and we had a surprise breakfast at Cracker Barrel to welcome him home safe and sound. 

Got busy with some household repairs with good intentions to do a run of about 20, but I waited until it was cooler out, around 7:30 and by then I think my legs were a bit over stressed from the workload this week.  My Garmin quit on me around an hour into the run, and I finished in about 2 hours - so I am calling it 15 miles, more or less.