I only run on days that end in a "y."

60 degrees and foggy - actually pretty neat weather to run in.  Simple out and back from the house - no watch - was in a zone and ran past the 3 mile point so ran a little extra.  I wanted to get in an easy 6.

Nice morning - 57 - it was actually cooler than I thought it would be - maybe it wasn't has humid as yesterday.

So the original workout on the schedule was a tempo run - but the coaches changed it at the last minute to 1000's on the track.  Russ and I traded some emails and we decided to go with the tempo run instead.   I didn't feel like the track for some reason and figured tempo would be better in the overall scheme of things.

This time we did some easy miles to Expo and 35th - yep, the hills again - and then started our tempo there coming back on Expo, turning right on Enfield - more hills - and then coming back on a nice stretch of LAB and then the last mile of tempo on the trail.  I thought we did pretty well on the trail considering how much pace it can take off.

I really needed this run.  We both ran very controlled and relaxed the whole time, I never thought at any point that I was working too hard - it all seemed to come together.  We cooled down with an easy 1.2 miles. 

Easy miles:  8:38, 8:11, 7:48, 7:13, 7:06, .35 @ 7:10

Tempo miles:  6:20, 6:17, 6:26, 6:18, 6:22, .11 @ 6:25.

Easy 1.2 miles: 7:20

warm and humid but the rain held off.  Went out during lunchtime for a 6 mile recovery run - 8:20's.  

I thought this morning was going to be gross weather wise, but we got reprieve last night from a nice cold northerly wind.  Around mid 50's to start and windy.

One warm up mile and then met Mike and Russ at the annex for 20.  I wanted to hit 70 this week.  Also fighting a bit of a respiratory infection.  Fun!

Today was the most hills I have ever run on a long run.  The rollers start around mile 4 all the way up to Mt. Bonnel.  When we got to the parking lot Russ had some crazy idea that it would be fun to run the stairs to the top for a view of the city lights.  So up we went, the view was awesome - seeing downtown that far away and realizing that we had just run that was cool.  So off we went through some more rollers and then made our way to a nice flat part.  Next thing I know Mike and Russ were cruising in the low 6's with the intent of stopping for water at the upcoming water stop.  The only problem was that the stop wasn't there and we had to keep going to the Expo hills and quite a bit further until there was water.  After that they kept cruising and I kept up with pretty much until we hit the trail again.  Then we come out the other side and start up Barton Hills drive.  This is the first time in a while I had to stop and take a quick breather during a long run.  The next couple miles were full of hills - they never seemed to stop.  Finally around mile 18 I got a good down hill and tried to cruise it in from there.  My legs felt like they normally do during the last miles of a long run.  By this time I got completely dropped by Russ and Mike and had to make my own way in.  I hope that on one of these runs I will be able to stick with them the entire way. 

I am starting to question the sanity of running with these guys.  I am sure long runs are not meant to be like this! :-)  Hills on Tuesday, hills on Thursday, and then today.  That's enough hills for me for a while.

One warm up mile and then met Mike and Russ at the annex for 20.  I wanted to hit 70 this week.

9:00, 8:38, 8:16, 7:38, 7:22, 7:08, 7:06, 7:32 (Mt. Bonnel), 7:38 (more hills), 6:58, 6:55, 6:45, 6:47, 6:38 (Expo) 6:50, 7:06, 7:26 (hills start again) 7:36, 7:11, 6:37, 6:40.

Overall pace 7:15.

My wife was gracious enough of letting take a nap!  I felt pretty beat up.

For grins here is the route map - click on elevation - large to view the fun(takes about 30 seconds to refresh):  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5282658

I didn't wake up until 7:30 this morning.  I stuck my head out the door a while later and it was cold, windy and a bit rainy.  I would have gone out if it were not for the rain.  So I finally made it to the gym around 8:30 for some easy miles around the indoor track.  Did some quick core work afterward.  Legs felt better than I thought they would.

8.25 easy - overall average pace 8:25.  Trying to save the legs for tomorrow's 2k's.

Nice cool morning - a tad under 50 with a full moon out.

 I ran 1.25 miles warm up and then met the group at the annex.  The Boston group got a lecture from the coach about running long runs too fast.  I am sure he was talking to me and Russ but he did not pick us out.  Lots of talk about how it is still early in training to be hammering it too much in the long runs, and to try and get to the marathon feeling fresh and not beat up.  I am sure it is all good advice.  We will see if anyone heeds it. Runners like to push things, you know.

We finally got on the way and did 1.5 easy to Zilker park and then 5 x 2k.  The group stopping point is not exactly 2k so I always continue on for another 100m to make it a true 2k.  

When we arrived the others who did not get lectured and who got a head start had already completed 1 lap.  We tagged onto a group.  Then the coach put us into groups based on time, and that worked for 1 lap.  Then we fell in with the group ahead of us on the next one, which Russ took off on, not knowing it was their last.  So we probably ran this one a bit fast, I know he did as I held back a little knowing we still had 2 more to go.

We finished it off strong, the 5th one is always tough mentally as the mind wants to tell the body to quite.

Good solid workout - we basically ran a 10k this morning but took 2 minute recoveries in between the laps. The last time I ran these I did 4, so happy to have been able to get in 5 today. Not very consistent laps - too much confusion out there this morning.

2k @ 7:27 (6:03 pace)

2k @ 7:22 (6:00 pace)

2k @ 7:16 (5:54 pace)

2k @ 7:29 (6:04 pace)

2k @ 7:14 (5:52 pace)

1.5 miles back to the annex @ 7:04 pace (I had to get back.)

Since I won't be able to run on Thursday and will miss that workout, I figured I would try to front load the week a bit to get the mileage in.  I ran 5.6 miles during lunchtime.  The first couple minutes were not easy, but after a while the legs warmed up.  8:20's.

Cold morning - we have one off those satellite weather stations.  It never seems to be accurate.  It read 50 degrees.  When I opened the door I knew that wasn't right.  I had to grab my pullover.  When I got back it read 44 - still not right.  The radio on the way in said it was 39.  I guess I will have to go old school and get an outdoor thermometer. 

I had just enough time to squeeze in a 4 mile slow recovery run.  I plan on going out at lunch to tonight for a few more.  

9 pm - kids off to bed - went out for a 7 mile run.  I almost never run in the evening but surprisingly my legs felt really good.  My intention was to run some more easy-recovery miles but the legs felt so good I fell into a nice MGP pace.  No running tomorrow so I figured it would be OK to push it a bit.

1.5 easy followed by 6:54, 6:52, 6:50, 6:45, 6:44, .5 @ 6:43.

I had the kids this morning and a monthly lunch meet-up with some other runners, so my only chance to getting in a run was after work.  I stopped by the trail near the office on the way home for a few loops.  They had recently put down some fresh mulch/bark so half the trail was nice and cushy.

 Ran to shake the legs out a bit and prepare for tomorrow's run.  I did a couple sets of step ups last night and can feel it today.  I think I should start doing some more of those with some lunges.

Windy and cold morning - high 30's but the wind made it feel much colder.  

I had no plan for this run other than to get some good MGP stuff in.  I did not do a hard workout on Thursday and felt pretty well rested.  I ran a very easy warm up mile and met up with the group at the annex.  I took off with Mike, Russ and another runner, Matt.  When I saw Matt I knew this was going to be pretty quick run.  We ran the hills of Enfield and Expo again and pushed hard on them.  We climbed a bit more - though very steady - until the turn around point, and them came back across and down Duval.  This is a pretty fast stretch and I felt good here.

I stuck with Mike and Russ until Duval.  I wanted to stay closer to MGP and they dropped the pace and let them get about 40 meters in front.  We met at the last water stop and I told them to just take off, I wanted to keep at MGP.  However, I felt pretty good at this point so I dropped the pace a bit as well for a nice strong finish.  I never did catch them.

I need to check but I don't remember ever running a long run this quick - overall AP was 6:50.  I really tried to stay in the 6:40s as much as possible to get the legs use to that pace.  I felt really good afterward - 65 days until Boston so there is yet hope of being in shape for a sub 3.

(8:56 pre run mile) 8:17, 7:39, 7:09, 6:55, 6:59, 6:48, 6:48, 6:42, 6:48, 6:44, 6:44, 6:41, 6:34, 6:34, 6:09, 6:18, .13 @ 6:02.

Eight and a half easy/recovery miles.  I stayed on the grass/dirt next to the streets and sidewalks as much as possible.  It was very muddy and slick in some spots from the rain, and I again went down with less than a half a mile to go.  Muddy hands and a bruised ankle - from hitting it against a curb.  Not fun, hopefully I can run tomorrow.  I'll take an external injury instead of an internal one any day - fortunately I did not pull anything.

Other than that a great run - I could have kept on going.

8:25 AP.

Medium long run day - skipped the group fun of doing 1000m repeats on the hills.  I met Russ and Mike at BS pool for the 11 mile loop.  I got there a bit early and did 1.3 mile warm up.  I had hoped I could pick it up on the last 2-3 miles for a bit of a progressive run but the legs were having none of it.  Mike and Russ took off, of course, this is getting a bit disheartening.  Sigh.  Maybe I should start running by myself again - I probably won't feel so bad after these runs.  

The trail was pretty wet so for sure that took 10-15 seconds of pace off per mile - I can find no other reason why the paces felt a lot harder than they were on the final 5 miles.   I think my legs were still feeling it from Saturday, so I backed off a bit on the last mile instead of pushing harder.

45 degrees but 100% humidity and fog.  I was getting warm towards the end though even with a short sleeve on.

1.3 @ 9:00 pace, then 8:56, 7:59, 7:34, 7:25, 7:06, 6:45, 7:01, 7:10, 6:55, 7:07, 7:15.  (7:24 AP)

5 miles @ 8 pm.  Decided to go run otherwise I was going to fall asleep.  LOL.

AP 8:09 with 5 x 15 seconds steep hill sprints afterward.  Fortunately there is a short but extremely steep hill right across the street from my front door.

75 degrees and sunny at lunchtime.  I ran the soft trail loop in my soft shoes at recovery pace.  I tried to run slower but I don't think my legs will let me run a 9:00 mile -  I tried.  AP - 8:34.

My legs are tingling from the recent runs/workouts.  I thought 5 miles was more than enough for today.

What to do, what to do.  I got an email from Russ yesterday saying he was skipping the scheduled workout this morning because his legs were toast and he was going to take it easy.  The workout was 2 x 2k, 3 x 1k, and 4 x 400m.  The more I thought about it the less I liked the idea of piling that on top of my legs this week, especially with a hilly 20 mile run looming on Saturday.  And I don't want to embarrass myself on Saturday since SlowJoe will be joining me.

I got to thinking that I have not done any 400's yet this training cycle.  I like them because they are great at getting that quick leg turn over but are so short that they don't cause a huge amount of stress on the legs.  So 400's it was. 

I ran 6 easy with one slow mile and then 7:40s followed by 12 x 400m with 60 second active recoveries on the neighborhood middle school track. 

1 x 400m @ 1:27 to ease into it.

1 x 400m @ 1:24

9 x 400m @ 1:20-1:21

1 x 400m @ 1:16

Then ran 1 mile cool down to the house @ 7:50.

I woke up to rain and decided to sleep in.  Raining a bit at lunch, too.  I figured the trails would be too wet or muddy and I wanted to stay off of pavement today.  Ran the inside track for 6 very easy miles. 

Soggy morning.  It was not raining when I arrived at the annex.  There was a dearth of people there, I can only guess that many are running the marathon tomorrow or were scared away by the forecast.  I met Slow Joe in the parking lot and we went for a quick mile before the long run.  

We then met up with Russ and Mike and headed out.  It did not take long for the rain to start coming down, there was ample lightning to the north, and plenty of large puddles on the trail to attempt to dodge or jump over.  At a certain point I kind of gave up as my feet were pretty much soaked.  

Maybe around mile 6-7 we started hitting some rollers and then on to Mt. Bonnel.  Of course, we made SJ run the stairs up to the top from the parking lot.  I think there are 105 stairs.  Not easy after making the run up the Mt. Bonnel road.  The view at the top makes it all worth it, though.

Now onward down the other side on a very steep decent through another 1.5 miles of rollers, then turn around and back again.  Nothing is as demoralizing as seeing that climb coming up in the distance.  We all survived though and enjoyed the next mile or two of nice down hills, through some rollers on which we came and then back via the trail.  It started raining heavily on the last couple miles, and this is where I pulled out the wild card of the prerun mile and counted it against my 20.  Mike and Russ were not so lucky and continued on.  SJ and I finished the last 2 on a very wet and sloppy trial.

SJ is a super nice guy and a very strong runner.  It was great to meet him.  Hopefully, he enjoyed his time with our group.

9:00 warm up then 8:33, 7:54, 7:53, 7:24, 7:34, 7:34, 7:00, 6:58, 7:15, 7:44, 7:18, 7:10, 7:01, 6:50, 6:50, 6:46, 6:36, 7:19, 6:59.

The hills are paying off, I feel like my legs are getting stronger.

Cool morning - very quiet out on the streets.  7.5 easy - a bit stiff from Saturday but the legs felt better after a few miles.

The group schedule was 10 on the trail with the last 20 minutes hard effort.  I decided to run from the house.  I didn't feel like the trail again, and with Russ nursing an injury (I warned him he was pushing it a bit) it would be just me out there after a while, so I didn't see a need to drive all the way downtown.  Besides, last week when I tried this on the trail it did not work out too well.

The legs felt really good so I let them carry me.  I ran some rollers out for a while then down Jollyville and turning around at the Arboretum, coming back up Jollyville and some back streets to the house.   Nice gradual by steady elevation gain on the way back.  I turned it into a progression run. I kept thinking of what Joe Rubio said in Kevin Beck's book (the chapter I have based most of my training on) about how he would do his progressive 15 mile progressive runs: 5 eays, 5 @ MGP, and 5 as hard as he could.  Well, I wasn't doing 15 miles today, but stuck with the idea for the run that I had, except that I had too many easy miles up front.  Maybe next time something like 4, 4 and 4.  Well see, this run seemed good enough!

8:51, 7:52, 7:41, 7:21, 7:13, 7:10, 7:05, 6:50, 6:47, 6:50, 6:29, 6:15.

I need new shoes!

Cutting back mileage a bit this week - that's the plan anyway.

Actually a pretty warm and muggy morning - 6.5 easy in the Cortanas.  I really don't like these shoes that much - it's too much shoe.  Good enough for plodding along, I guess.  8:40 AP.

Wow - 66 degrees this morning.  The Boston schedule had some funky fartlek while the rest of the group had intervals.  I emailed Mike last night and we decided the intervals would be good to get in some turnover.

We did 5 sets of 600m, 400m, and 200m, with 200m active recovery in between intervals and 2 minutes recovery between sets.  We kept moving a bit during the 2 minute recoveries as well.  These were more "endurance" based intervals than pure speed and we ran them as such.  Never felt out of breath and was nice and relaxed.  In fact, Mike and I were singing "singing in the rain" during some of them, just to make sure we were not working too hard.   I only pushed it on the very last 200m.

3.6 mile easy followed by 5 x 600, 400, 200 sets.

1.  2:14, 1:27, :44

2.  2:14, 1:30, :44

3.  2:09, 1:25, :44

4.  2:06, 1:27, :42

5:  2:07, 1:28, :36

1.6 easy back to the annex.

Only 10 miles for the morning, but I was OK with that since I am cutting back a bit this week.

Stayed on the trail behind the office and then around the small lake.  8:40 AP

Nice morning for a run!  40 degrees, no wind.  We ran a point-to-point down to the trail with some rollers along the way, but a net elevation drop, with a few miles of hills tacked on the end to mimic Boston.  This is the lollipop loop that I died on 3 weeks ago and which today I dominated.  It felt so awesome to take the hills without slowing down too much and definitely not stopping as I did last time.  It was confident booster.  Several factors probably helped me today - I wore my new racing flats which were phenomenal (thanks SJ!), I ran the speed work on Thursday easy and did not kill myself, and I had a couple small baguettes last night before bed (thanks Dasha for the advice.)

Most of the group did 15.5 but Mike and I went up another mile and parked after dropping a few runners off at the other stop.  We passed most of the runners on the hills of expo - we were flying here - looked at my watch once and it read 6:20.  We slowed a bit.  We picked up another runner at a water stop and he had ideas of of turning it into a race I guess, and Mike fell into the trap trying to keep up and pass him.  They were at 6:10 or so and I let them go.  We still had the hills and I was not going to die on them today.  So I ran the last few miles by myself, which I actually like since I don't feel like I have to keep up with anyone.  

Fastest long run yet @ 6:44 overall pace.  Maybe I need to adjust my marathon goal a bit.  We will see how it goes over the next few weeks.  6:40's felt really good.

7:34, 7:05, 6:55, 6:44, 6:42, 6:31, 6:27, 6:20, 6:34, 6:48, (here come the hills) 7:05, 6:53, 6:45, 7:08, (homeward stretch) 6:35, 6:25, 6:02 (including a few strides.)

Chilly morning but the sun was coming up.  I could definitely feel the calves this morning.  I thought it would be a good idea to get them stretched out a bit so I went for a super easy run.  9:09 AP.

6 SLOW miles on the trial near the office in the clogs - 9:10 AP. Yes, the calves are still sore.  Leave it to me to try those flats out on a 17 mile run. (It was worth it though.)

There is supposed to be a 10 mile MGP run on a hilly course in the am tomorrow - that may end up being more of a progressive run for me with the last couple fast.  Not sure the wisdom is there to go and run a 10 mile MGP run after this last Saturday.

A big group of Boston marathoner's are headed down to San Marcos on Sunday to run Moe's, a hilly half marathon.  I am going to pass on that and get 22 in on Saturday.  I don't want to race it (I think the San Antonio half took something off of my CIM performance) and I don't need to run it as a MGP run as I can do that for free. :-)

70 miles for the week seems like a long shot unless I don't take a day off.  We will see how it goes.

Misty, foggy, humid morning.  The workout for the day was a 1 mile warm-up followed by 10 miles at MGP with some killer rolling hills from mile 3-7.  There was one hill, man, me and Russ about died, unfortunately, it was not the last one, we still had the long climb on Scenic on the way back.  

Russ and I had exchanged emails yesterday and decided to go for MGP but back off if it was not happening.  I wasn't sure how my legs would react. They were still a bit sore.  They actually felt OK during the run, until the last mile when I could feel the fatigue. My breathing was in control the whole run and I never felt from an aerobic perspective that I was working too hard.  Trying to hit MGP after a slow 9:00 mile warm up was difficult, especially on the trail - my legs were like "what are you doing?!"

One of the coaches had set up a water table at the halfway point, so it was grab-and-go to simulate race conditions.

All in all a good workout, good confidence booster to make it through the hills at MGP.  Energy was not an issue - 3 slices of whole wheat bread with Nutella before bedtime. :-)

9:00 warm up mile followed by: 6:58, 6:47, 6:44, 6:37, 6:44, 6:48, 6:50, 6:41, 6:44, 6:29.

4 x 50m strides with .15 cool down jog back to the annex from the trail.

PM - 6 easy on the trail near the office.  Wow, the first 1/2 was slow - I hope I know what I am doing here, I am definitely stressing the legs.  Moreover, I had average pace showing and I thought I was glancing at current pace - it made a difference the first mile was close to a 10 minute mile but I finished with 8:34 AP - the last couple were close to 8:00 even.  Faster than I wanted.  Tomorrow will be a short recovery run day.

5 super easy around the trail near the office.