"There are no compromises." -Once a runner

Added on to my normal 8.2 loop at home cause I felt so good.  8:24 pace very easy

Easy trails with Ted.  Wasn't that easy because he is a 14:50 5ker, but easier than the last run we did together.  I am officially out of nuun and am freaking out.  I went to two different running shops and neither carried it.  I bought some cytomax and some elixer.  After having nuun for so long, having sugar in my drink really makes it less thirst quenching.  Luckily the elixer stuff is almost identical to the lemon lime flavor of nuun.  It will keep me going until I can get to the REI 30 min away and stock up on the good stuff--nuun tri berry.  The cytomax is good, but when I was really thirsty, I chugged a 24oz bottle of elixer and starting on the cytomax but when I got home I made another 24oz of elixer and drank all of that.  I have decided that if I am in a situation in which calories are needed, I will do honey if its a race and bars or real food if it's an easy pace.

AM: 3 to work and 3.2 around campus. Was especially hard getting up and going this morning. Don't know if the 70mpw is finally catching up with me mentally or all of the road running and running without company is getting to me mentally. More likely it is the latter. I think I need a monster workout to get me refocused. But it is hard doing the kind of workout I need without company. I am going to do 4x5x400 w/100 between 400s and 400 between sets of 5 with the fast stuff at vo2max pace (80-82sec for me). The question is should I do it on the indoor track, on the treadmill, or outside? I think it is gonna be outside in the morning tomorrow. This morning it was pretty cool actually. I almost didn't take off my shirt after I dropped off my bag of work cloths at the gym. It would have been a perfectly comfortable temperature with it on, but between a little nipple chaffing and the thought of actually feeling a bit cold during a run I went for it and it was great. Also weighed in this morning at 162 so I think I am on the right track to losing some weight this summer. I have only seen the other side of 160 since middle school once and that was earlier this year in a desperate attempt to lose weight by nearly totally starving myself. I think that the mileage and heat are finally doing their job.

Ugh. The summer heat finally claimed its first workout casualty. At least I finished the workout, but it wasn't pretty. 85F direct sun

Attempted 8x1k with 2 min rest on a measured section of road near my home. Ended up doing 6x1k with avg 2:45 recovery and 5x400 w/45 sec recovery Did 1.5 warmup, stretched, then got going. Times were as follows.

3:19 (too fast I knew with the heat I was looking for 3:24 but it was slightly downhill with a tailwind)
3:24 (as usual second one gets on pace)
3:25 (this one hurt more than it should have being the downhill stretch again)
3:32 (uphill with the headwind I just couldn't hold onto it without compromising the rest of the workout took a 4 min rest after this one to try to get fresh again)
3:24 (the 4min break helped but I knew it wouldn't last)
3:41 (I thought about quiting at this point but I know what VO2max pace feels like and this felt like it despite being darn slow, I decided instead of quiting to do 5x400 with 100 rest to finish out the volume of the workout at least, took another 4min recovery)
80 (perfect, didnt even feel too bad)
79
79 (ouch, heat and short rests starting to catch up to me again)
84 (wow, felt much faster than that)
79 (I totally kicked on this one, I couldnt help it, my times were so terrible I wanted to hit pace for the last one and my legs were not really hurting much during the workout, mostly cardiovascular pain so I went anaerobic in the last 200 and still had only a mediocre time)

1.5 cool down (still 85 degrees so not exactly cool, I wouldn't have gone this far except my measured bit of road is 1.5 miles from my home)

15min ice bath in case I went too hard on this workout.

I almost never die in workouts. My times are always spot on or if any variation get faster throughout the workout. I might try the indoor track at vandy or the treadmill for my next VO2max workout. Here are the possible reasons that this workout went poorly.

1. heat

2. lost fitness

3. 70mpw is wearing on me

4. lack of recent speed work made this harder than usual psychologically or physiologically

5. first serious VO2max workout alone (unlikely, psychologically I was strong to finish the workout, I kept trying to relax in my pace, forcing a 2-2 breath pattern until I just couldn't maintain it anymore, I also tried starting each rep slow enough to maintain but every one was really really tough)

easy run and then some abs.  Want to be really fresh for the 18 mile race on saturday.  But I also still want to get 70 miles in for the week.  Is it silly?  Yes.  Will it help my training? Debatable.  Will it hurt my race performance? Yes.

On another note, I am thinking about making a slight change to my approach to mileage building.  Instead of doing 8-12 most days I think I will start doing longer and shorter days.  I can do 13-18 one day and 3-7 the next better sticking to my training philosophy of stress recover repeat instead of my current stress-stress-adapt which doesn't seem to be working (at least in the short term, lol). 

easy run around downtown chattanooga.  18 mile trail race tomorrow!

I really should have won. I was 30 sec behind #1 and 10 min in front of #3. Here is how it happened.

Woke up at 6:30 and made it to the race at 7:30 and it rained a bit during the drive. The rain cooled it down to 65 but it was still low 80's by the end of the race. Everybody went out really easy it seemed. After one mile I was in 2nd with seemingly nobody near me except #1 right in front of me. But around mile 3 during some switchbacks I saw that there were about 10 people in striking distance. I stayed in #2 until the first water stop at mile 5 where I took the lead. The guy was right on my tail, but it was a long downhill section so I dropped him with some real speed down the hills. Overall the trail was not flat, but the slopes were all pretty gradual. I only walked up hills twice late in the race and was able to really kill the downhills. So then at the mile 8 aid station, I realized someone was right behind me and it wasn't the guy who lead the first 5. I took off and immediately fell sliding quite a bit. I got up and got going just in time to keep the lead. This guy stayed on my tail despite destroying the downhills and going up hills very comfortably until after the water stop at mile 11.8 which was the last water stop. I could have dealt with one more in that heat but it was just enough to get me through. Again here there were some pretty gradual downhills but this time they were more technical. So I finally dropped this guy and eventually couldn't see him even on pretty long switchbacks because as I learned later he had fallen. I fell another time as well and added some sand to my dirt smeared body. Then the heat really started getting to me, and not being able to see the #2 guy I slowed down.  I really had no idea how far I was from the finish because it was a loop course and I wasn't even wearing a watch.  I didn't realize that the guy was gaining on me until he was right behind me.  I held him off for a few hills but then he passed me and I knew it was no use.  Had I known that there was only about 1/2 a mile left I would have pushed a bit harder, but I didn't have much and I think he had quite a bit left.  As I said earlier I finished about 30 sec behind him and 10 min in front of #3.  I beat the previous course record by 7 minutes but since I got 2nd I did not set the course record.  I only did the 1 day of the stage race, but the guy who beat me also just did the one day and the guy in 3rd didn't finish the first day because he got lost and only ran 14 miles.  And I feel that even though the 4th place guy ran 22 miles the day before I still owned him as he finished 12 minutes after me.  I wish I had worn my garmin as I sort of doubt that this course was a full 18 miles.  I think more like 16-16.5.  If it was a full 18 miles I am really happy with the 7 min flat pace that I managed on trails.