Step by step, mile by mile

AM - chiropractor. will most likely do a half hour on the treadmill tonight. it's so cold here!

AM - 3 miles, 6:33 pace. was curious how much fitness i'd lost in nearly a week of nothing but a couple prison workouts, answer is less than i thought going into the run but more than i thought after running a half-hearted 6:20 first mile. i'll probably need a week to get back into full-swing. was gonna go for 6 but being antsy to finally run made me go out the door before the coffee had done it's job and i was having some bad stomach issues. i'll do another 3 tonight.

oh, and started reading "once a runner" yesterday. attribute any stellar running feats i do in the near future to it

AM - 8, 6:29 pace. cold and wet!

AM - 8 miles, 6:18 pace. thought i'd screwed me and my somewhat rusty self by unintentionally running the first mile under 6:20, but i got a second wind about 10 minutes later and jumped back on it. last 3 miles in 18:29. nothing too fast; just maintaining form.

my 10-day diet is just about over, thank heavens. i shed pounds like clothes when i'm not running, but it takes self-control to not continue eating as i was when i was running 10-20 miles daily. even did a 36-hour fast last weekend, which was hell, but having dropped from 158 the friday morning before last to 150 today i'd call it a necessary sacrifice. nearly back to my ideal weight! 

best i've felt since the knee soreness arose last thursday, might snag that elusive post-work run i've been putting off so much lately. was thinking during the run about how a year ago i'd do 10, 12, or even 15 miles after an arduous hospital shift without even considering myself being tired. i need THAT eugene back, think i know how. it'll probably mean sacrificing pace, but i think i can still do 6:40's and call it genuinely easy whereas a year ago that pace would be no faster than 7:10. basically i'm saying reading "once a runner" has convinced me to go back to the high-mileage gene of yonder, no pun intended. celebrating by bringing back my critically acclaimed "song of the day: series

sotd: holy f***ing s**t - have a nice life. not choosing it for the edgy name, it's just a  transcendentally great song. long post lol

AM - got ~30 seconds in my run, but with me still being groggy i didn't notice a pretty big dip in the grass, and rolled my ankle hard, easily the hardest i've ever rolled it. it didn't/doesn't hurt, but stopped just in case it's one of those things where 12 hours off would patch it up but pressing on for another few miles might make it much worse. still, doesn't feel like much of anything. i'll put on a compression sleeve and ice for good measure

knowing me this probably means i'll extend my diet another 12 hours to cover up the guilt of skipping the run -_- least it forces my hand on the post-work run

PM - 3-mile shakeout, 6:50 pace. ankle felt fine, just loosening up for 4 days of high mileage. goal is to hit 80 miles mon-thurs, i already caught myself trying to talk myself into 88 during work though so i guess we'll see; i'm hoping if i find myself at 66 miles after wednesday i'll have the sensibility to just do 14 on thursday. the three-a-day runs are coming back baby! missed em

AM - 3-mile treadmill, 7:10 pace. 5AM runs are gross but at least i got to run indoors

AM2 - went to run at hilton and i don't know if i've ever been so cold in my life. 30 degrees with some strong, icy winds. got a quarter of a mile in before i bailed and drove to the gym again for another 7.75 at 6:40 pace. i hate treadmills so couldn't force myself to do the full 12, but i'll learn to love them by the spring. less AM mileage than i wanted but eh, still got the AM double in

PM - 5 after work, 6:38 pace. about as cold as this morning, but not as windy luckily. still felt like my hands were gonna freeze, even with gloves.

first triple in forever! did this mileage warrant it? absolutely not :)

sotd: a life in the day of benjamin andre - outkast

also forgot to say yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my first half-marathon race(rock n' roll san antonio). the story behind me getting into running was me being a pompous ass even as 11 by telling my dad(who'd been jogging marathons since i was like 4) i could beat him in the half-marathon he was doing at the end of the year, even though i'd never trained a day in my young life up to that point. he said if i did his same mileage for the next few months leading up to the race he'd let me run it, and obviously i did. didn't beat him, but i wanted to so i ran middle-school track that spring to get faster and trained with him again for the half and became the faster grindle that december.

the rest is history! to another 10 years of too much mileage! and yes i know i glowed up ty

AM - 3 miles, 7:23 pace

AM2 - 10 miles, 6:23 pace. did dynamics, resistance band exercises, balance exercises, and some squats/deadlifts/calf raises with a 35lbs dumbbell prior to it. nothing too hard, just activating muscles. i'll try and do this for every day i have a second AM session but this is probably the only time i'll mention it. felt tired on the run from a bad night of sleep, but the legs carried me to a faster pace than i felt like i was putting in the effort to get. still 30's out so my knees were tight after from the cold, they feel better now though.

PM - 5, 6:50 pace. had my foot on the gas a little too hard this morning so i felt a bit more sore than i'd like. two days down, two to go! hopefully tomorrow's mileage will be big enough to warrant a triple 

AM - 4 on the treadmill, 7:24 pace.

felt pretty good, but i'm moving the two triples to thursday and friday. it has nothing to do with rest; it's just that on friday the high/low is going from 40's/20's to high 60's and mid-40's, and i'd much rather run 3 times in that weather

PM - 4. caught a stomach flu

PM - 3. working overtime

AM - 4. crappy week of training but tomorrow's a new week!

PM - 2

AM - 3. ready to kick this week's ass. supposed to get 2 inches of rain in the evening so probably got a treadmill 7 tonight

AM - 4 at the gym. got rear-ended hard at a red light in the afternoon, i'm alright on the macro but i have a lot of aches so taking at least the rest of the day off, we'll see how i feel in the morning

AM - 3 on the treadmill. everything hurt

PM - 6, 6:30 pace. felt better than i have in a long time; just running off some stress trying to figure out how i can afford to fix my car when i can barely afford to stay alive lol(even though i was literally 0% at fault)

AM - 3. felt pretty good! also until i say otherwise these AM 3-milers are on the treadmill at somewhere between 8-8.5 mph

PM - 6 on the treadmill. feeling a little more confident every run. too cold at 8PM!! wishing i lived somewhere like san diego where it could just be autumn weather all year. getting stressed from the car probably needing repair, but since i usually end up doing my best training as a means of dealing with feelings like stress, depression, etc. , hopefully i'll get a silver lining out of it

AM - 3. about to the point where i don't question driving to the gym as soon as i wake up at 5:30; that's harder than the run itself for me

PM - 6 at 9 mph. feel about ready to move up in mileage

AM - 8 miles going 8 mph the first two miles then increasing the pace by 0.5 mph every two miles, so i was running the last two at 9.5(so about 7:30 pace down to 6:18). on the treadmill, obviously. then did upper body weights and sauna after. kinda bummed that it being below freezing at 9am scared me into running at the gym because it felt super nice out leaving the gym. was very tempted driving home to stop at hilton park and run for another hour. i'm not naive to know i'm probably not in shape to do that right now, hopefully i will be soon though.

seems like as good a time as any to write a quick recap of my running this year with the hindsight goggles on. being how coming into the year i'd just done some crazy feats of mileage i'd never thought possible(30-mile long run, 3-day stretch going 30, 45, 30, and running 200 miles in a week, to name the highlights), i got a little too sure of myself and did 80 miles in two days then accidentally messed up my hips the next morning doing leg swings. if i had known that's what it was it probably would have meant a week or two off max and keeping most of the fitness, but instead i kept trying to run as much as i could, i'd get maybe 5 days of running in before the hips broke me down and id need a few days off. did that for about 6 weeks before getting frustrated and taking a few months off, and basically built my base back up from scratch, albeit probably under some stronger legs than i had building up last year from 18 months off. 

this is the main takeaway when i view the year, having just jumped to this crazy level of fitness just to squander it, but really it's been a pretty good year, probably my second best after last year. i'll only be a couple hundred miles short of what i ran before, and looking at it in terms of running fast, this year was much better too. i think i was more excited last year to have ran 15 miles at 6:33 pace than when i ran 5:57 pace for 15 a couple months ago. lost some fitness the past couple weeks, but i think i'll be going into 2021 with just as much to be excited about as i did a year ago. plus, mike's back now so i can't be dogging workouts, it's not good for public perception :)

AM - 6, 6:31 pace. would have been perfect weather if it weren't so windy: mid-50's and sunny

PM - 3, 6:20 pace. low 50's at 8PM are pushing it for half-tights and a short-sleeve, but it was all i had after work. 6:10 third mile feeling out my stride

AM - 4, 6:25 pace. felt like i had a pulley on my chest; i couldn't slow down! i wanted to, i swear

AM - 10 miles, 6:32 pace. 2:50 last half-mile

PM - 8. first 5 at 5:56 pace shaking out the legs from the 8-hour drive

AM - 6, 6:52 pace.

PM - 4, 6:54 pace. wanted to go like 10 miles longer but was in dallas all day and there was only like a half-hour of sunlight left when we got home

no running! it was in the 30's with a 20+ mph wind all day, i nearly caught a cold just changing my oil in the afternoon. did some core and strength work with some dumbbells

8 christmas miles, 6:48 pace. wanted to go longer but the cinnamon rolls we made messed up my stomach.

7 miles, was pressed for time before i had to drive back to bama so went a little faster. hovered right around 5:30 pace for most of it

didn't have time to update over the holidays; basically not a lot of mileage was ran because i was busy doing family stuff but made sure all the mileage i did get was money. all runs done on a hilly out-and-back gravel road.

PM - 4 miles, 6:30 pace. windy, had some bad stomach cramps, and was 10 hours removed from a very long drive, with only 4 of the hours spent sleeping. i guess i felt good with all that factored in.

AM - 3