M'kay

LM, then 2 mile warmup in 16:00, 8:00/mi.  10K in 39:08, 6:17/mi.  2 mile cooldown in 16:41, 8:20/mi.

Sunny and cool (45-50F).  Not enough sleep and tired this morning.  Cold (30s) prior to the race but when the sun came out, perfect.  Would love to run a 39 min 10K, knowing that some beastly hills awaited me.  Felt like crap during the warmup, especially the 0.5 tempo, so normal.  At the gun, away and feeling good.  Garmin and course splits off from the beginning (6:05 course versus 6:17 garmin), so not sure what use the splits are, but....6:17, 6:18, 7:08, 6:59, 5:52, 6:11, and 0:23.  Guess where the hills were?

Felt very good for the first 1.5 on the flats...at the 5K/10K split, was kinda wishing I'd run the 5K instead, because I think I might've been able to beat my 5K PR (18:48) if I poured it on in the 2nd half.  The first hill greeted me just prior to the 2 mile mark and went straight up.  Reduced to a shuffle, quads burning pretty quickly, respiration near the max, yeah, good hill training.  Leveled off after ~ 150', a short relatively flat stretch, then up another 75' or so, then back down 75', passing the mile 3 mark on the way back down.  Not even looking at the watch now, just trying to get up the dang hills.  Next hill went up another 100+' on an ever so slightly less steep gradient, but painful nonetheless.  Then thru some rollers in the cemetery with plenty of twists and turns that at least had me focused more on tangents than the pain.  Managed to catch the 3rd place guy here, who ever so casually mentions I must've been working on hills and he wishes he hadn't gone mountain biking yesterday.  What's that?  I can't hear you over the air I'm choking in and out of my lungs!  3.5 marks a mile and a half of progressively steeper downhill with brief flat stretches, usually to make turns.  The last section was so steep it undoubtedly pushed me to the sub-6 pace despite my legs being shredded, but it definitely finished them off.  Another more gentle uphill stretch to the final downhill and onto another mile or so of flat to the finish.  

Could feel the guy I'd passed to take 3rd just stalking me for the last mile, he moves closer and I start really putting the hurt on myself trying not to get passed with around 0.5 left, although I really don't know exactly how much and don't have the energy to look at the watch.  Missed the 6 mile mark but it was probably around there he finally put the move on and passed me.  Not taking kindly to being passed that late in the race, I made some desperate attempt to catch and re-pass him to the finish to no avail (although I think I might've made him actually speed up a tad towards the end.  So a 4th place overall and 2nd in my age group (later, I found out the 3rd place guy was in the 20-29 AG, so no wonder!).

So, a nice tidy PR of 56 seconds over my previous best 10K (also the last 10K I'd run, nearly 2 years ago).  Probably worth quite a bit more on a flat course.  Oh, and I did manage to see I'd hit the 5K in around 19:15, which was after monster hill #1, so I'm pretty sure I had a 5K PR in me today.  This race has me wondering if I should perhaps punt on the marathon's for a while and enjoy the shorter races for a time?  Just a thought.

Treated myself to a mondo burrito, so now, off to change and get to work out in the yard.

--Update --

Wow, I suddenly got must faster.  The city of Puyallup just posted the "official" results and somehow I've now run a 38:08 10K.  Must be something to do with the space-time continuum and the cemetery in the 10K course.  I now also have taken 1st in the 30-39 AG, but remain 4th overall, so someone else suffered different effects and got older.  The guy I finished on the heels of supposedly finished in 37:36.  If he had 32 seconds on me, I'll eat my hat.  Or since I'm not wearing one, I'll eat the closest one I can find.

Obviously, the results are crap.  I should just let it drop and not worry about it, but the OC in me must send a note pointing out the obvious errors.  I'm sure by the time we're done, I'll be DQ'ed!

LM warmup, 4 miles in 30:54, 7:43/mi, 2 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs, & stretching.

Overcast and cool (51F).  A nice long 4 hour warmup taking up sod in the yard.  Yuck.  Oops, didn't mean to run that fast today....guess the horses were running for the barn, so to speak.  The beginnings of some quad soreness, so the roller comes out again tonight.

LM warmup, 10 miles in 1:18:03, 7:48/mi,, HR 153, 1 mile cooldown walk/jog w/ dogs, & stretching.

Cloudy and windy (55-61F).  Soreness has set into my left calf, hamstrings, glutes, adductors, and quads, to varying degrees, from Sunday's race.  Unfortunately, my back and shoulders are already sore from yesterday's sod removal project.  Somehow, I managed to get going in the face of all that plus some quite gusty headwinds for the first few (uphill, of course) miles and some gloomy clouds and wounds up having a good run.  Now, if that which hasn't yet killed me is making me stronger, I'll be a real he-man after today.

LM warmup, 6 miles in ~ 47:36, 7:56/mi, HR 148, w/ 10 x 10 sec hill sprints at mile 3 hill. 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Light rain (56F).  Legs still sore, especially hamstrings and adductors.  Easy effort today, excluding the hill sprints, when were nice and strong.  Time estimates were because garmin decided not to like the weather and stopped responding twice, so even the 10 sec sprints were estimates.....if anything, I went over, not under.  Hope the legs get better for tomorrow's tempo intervals.

LM warmup, 8.96 miles in 1:04:56, 7:15/mi, HR 161, with 2 mile warmup, 2 x 15 min tempo intervals at 6:31/mi (HR 171) and 6:20/mi (HR 175) average paces (3 min rest), and 2 mile cooldown.  1.25 mi cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Overcast and pleasant (56F).  Legs felt better today.  Normal pre-tempo trepidation.  Tempo interval one felt good until the uphill section hit, then got pretty tough, especially towards the end.  A tad uphill overall with one 180 turn.  Was aiming to hit 6:39/mi (current predicted HM pace), so it was a bit too fast.  Oops.  Second tempo interval got hard pretty quickly, but kept positive attitude and focused on relaxed, strong form.  Really got hard on the later uphill stages where I slowed.  Missed the target pace (6:17/mi - predicted 10K pace), probably in the last 3-4 minutes on the uphill where I slowed more than I liked.  But, this workout shows a GREAT improvement over 2 weeks ago where I ran a 6:48/mi and 6:33/mi over the same stretch of road, so this was a great workout.  I even felt pretty decent afterwards during the cooldown and stretching.

So, lessons learned from today.  Need to get my mind out of the way sometimes and to let myself believe.  Must hold back a bit more on the first one.   Good workout.

LM warmup, 4 miles in 31:20, 7:50/mi, HR 153, followed by 1 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs.

Rainy but warm (64F).  Attempting to transition to running 7 days/week, so today is a very easy run day.

LM warmup, 14 miles in 1:44:48, 7:29/mi, HR 156, with last 2.5 miles hard in 3:10 (down), 6:08 (down), and 6:43 (up).  2.5 mile cooldown walk w/ dogs & stretching.

Rainy (64F).  Nasty weather....showers, downpours, thunder, sun, wind, and just plain old rain.  First 6 miles uphill into the state forest, with last 1.5 gaining ~300'.  Legs started feeling tired by mile 8, so the last 2.5 hard was going to be a real treat.  Managed good pace for downhill portion of hard running, but the last mile it felt like I had lead weights for legs, breathing rate went to as fast as possible, and speed slowed way down.  Dunno how I managed a 6:43 mile....it felt like double that.  I'll take it.