Seeking a better country...

Day off surrounded by sick kids.  I waited till the temperature peaked, and left for an open ended run.  I felt pretty good, running the first 2 miles around 7 min. pace.  Then I walked enough to make an 8 min 3rd mile.  The following 5 miles were 6:45-7:00 pace, including some good climbs.  

I guess I was thinking about marathon training too much and got a bit carried away.  I was talking with my wife last night about the race, and going big.  I could go two ways on it; higher mileage or more speed stuff.  I watched pretty closely the results Christi got with lower volume/high intensity training, and that seems to fit my schedule better.  But I'm a wuss, and don't always want to work that hard.  She's got game, too.  I don't know if I have enough heart to show up and gut it out like that.

In any case, I've got to go beyond what I did for TOU.  I have a solid base, I'm healthy, and not burned out at this time.   

Biggest Loser progression run.  I started at 6.8 mph.  Every commercial break I added .2 mph.  Last couple miles were 7 min pace.  I've given up the battle with my incline motor.  I'm better at cutting pieces of wood and propping up the front or back end than I am at making the actual repair.  I guess when I want some hills, I'll go outside.  My son told me the gym was wall-to-wall today, and I'm lucky to have my own treadmill.  He's right, even though it is a noisy POS.  

Oh yeah.  For my birthday a few weeks ago, my mom gave me a trip to the running lab.  That's Thursday morning.  I'll be interested in what they have to say/suggest.  When I started running in 2008 the shoe store guy put me in a big clunky motion control shoe.  I'm a firm believer in the adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" so I've kept with the Saucony Omni series.  But, having run 400 miles in crocs in the last 4 months without injury, I'd say the need for such a shoe is past.  That said, I think I'd do well to find something in between.  My feet get sore from the little perforations on the crocs on runs over 8 miles, and I do think some impact absorption is a good shoe function.  But I think I can get away with a much lighter shoe without so much molded crap added to the heels and sides.   

Slow miles.  I've got running lab in the morning, so I don't want to be too tired.  50+ minutes.  As is usually the case, things are going from bad to worse on "24".

Running lab morning.  I hadn't seen that side of 6 a.m. on purpose in quite a long time.  I had a piece of toast, and got there by 6:15.  There were three stations; an agility/flexibility/core station with a physical therapist, lactate threshold with a tech and gait analysis with a tech and doc.  

The agility/flexibility/core was helpful, and highlighted tightness in my shoulders, hamstrings and deep calfs.  Everything else was good.  

The lactate threshold consisted of progression running on the treadmill.  After running at 6.5 mph for 3 minutes, she measured heartrate and lactic acid level in the blood thru a pinprick in the earlobe.  The stick took 10-20 seconds, then speed up .5 mph, and continue until the lactic acid level really starts to climb.  At 8 mph she said, "Probably a couple more."  At 8.5 mph, she said, "Probably a couple more."  At 9 mph she said, "Probably 2 or 3 more."  At 9.5 mph she said, "You know, in fit people, the climb isn't as sudden..."  At 10 mph I was getting pretty tired.  At 10.5 mph, ran for a couple minutes and told her "I don't have another 40 seconds of this.  I'm gonna puke."  Her response was to encourage me to finish.  I finished, and stayed just on the right side of the puke line.  I overheard the doc getting after her as I went to the bathroom.  "You aren't supposed to run them till they throw up!"  

Finally, the gait analysis.  They had me run barefoot for a while with front, side and rear cameras.  They let me run in my regular shoes and crocs.  This was much shorter and easier than the lactate threshold.  At least I had a good warmup.  

 Overall, I was working with them for 90 minutes.  They said it would take them a few days to compile all the results into a report, so I'm still waiting for that.  Until I take a look at that, or talk with the doctor again, I won't be sure how useful the trip was.  The only immediate feedback I got was from the PT about having a good core and some stretching advice.  

I felt sick all day after doing that speed work.  Also, I was unable to resist showing off the difficult core pushups for my wife, (hands shoulder wide at the level of your forehead) and I feel like I tore something in my abs.  It's better today, but it hurt all day yesterday.   

Same old shoes, new pair.   I've never worn them outside, but they probably have 50 tm miles on them.  I'm glad work is over for the week.  It sure has been an easy winter for snow removal thus far.  My back is glad, but my wallet isn't. 

After shoveling driveways for 4 hours in the morning, I was feeling a bit tired.  The only reason this run happened is cuz I got on the blog and read about Andy and Melody's workouts.  They are both Boston-bound, and better runners than me, so I couldn't let them gap me in training...

So the slugfest lasted just over 2 hrs.  Very uninspired pace, but it was all my bag of bones could muster.