Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

74F, 78%.  7:29 AP.  Didn't feel as hot out there today - I actually felt the best in the last few miles instead of getting the usual drained/wilted/melted/weak/puny feeling.  Maybe I still had more heat adapting to do, although it was kind of a mild morning.

73F, 82%, 8:20 AP.  just plodding along.  2 more months of summer, then I will start training for a marathon...I think I've settled on the Route 66 in Tulsa.

78F, S 17-24 mph.  8:07 AP.  felt sluggish and kind of awkward.

76F, 73%, S 10 mph.  Today was 3.5 warmup, a hard 5K, and 3.4 cooldown.  This time I cheated even more and put together a 5k course that dropped a net 100 feet.  The first quarter mile drops 50' by itself which is basically falling off a cliff by Oklahoma standards.  After that it's a pretty mild course with a few ups and downs.

I did the 5k in 19:13

6:06  -80 ft

6:23  +7 ft

6:07  -28 ft

:37

So even though I cheated as much as geographically possible, I couldn't even break 19.  This was basically time trial effort, without the finishing kick.  I know the heat slows me down, but not that much.  Still have more a lot work to do on that 5k goal I guess.

75F, 8:17 AP.  I can feel the sleep defecit turning into sleep debt -- should be able to sleep in on Saturday though

73F.  Short interval day - went down to the track for 12 x 400, knowing it would probably still be under construction...it was.  So, reset the watch for 0.25 mile laps and did 12 x .25 miles, with 1-minute recovery jogs.  Naturally, it seemed like every repeat started at the bottom of a big hill, and every good downhill was wasted during the recovery minute.  My goal was to average 1:26 (goal 5K pace) but I only managed a 1:28 avg.  Maybe not too bad considering the terrain (splits ranged from 1:22 all the way to 1:38 depending on hills) but probably not as good as the 1:24 avg from the last time on the track.  I think the important thing is that I made sure to put forth the effort.  Just for grins, here are the splits - all over the place thanks to the stupid track being closed.

1:28, 1:26, 1:28, 1:34, 1:27, 1:26, 1:22, 1:25, 1:38, 1:27, 1:32, 1:23

86F, 8:12 AP.  mid-morning run.

73F, 76%.  7:18 AP.  Felt cooler today and my pace hovered around 7:00-7:05 for the second half of the run yet still felt easy.  Finished up with 5 or 6 hill sprints.

We should have some cooler weather blowing in next week.  By cooler, I mean maybe 3-5 degrees lower in the morning and highs below 100.  So it's all relative, but I'm looking forward to it anyway.  May even see sub-70F once or twice if we're lucky - basically a blizzard.

77F, 78%, 8:42 AP.

73F, 92%.  7:31 AP.  Got some rain yesterday (finally) to cool things off but it brought some humidity to replace the heat.  Tempo run tomorrow - I am hoping the forecasted 68F low actually happens...that is going to feel amazing if it holds true.

72F, 89%.  7:36 AP.  Nice out, but another failed tempo.  I could tell during the warmup it wasn't going to work today.  I still tried - my intent was 6 easy, then 6 @ 6:40.  Well, it felt like I was sprinting already in the first tempo mile, and I gave up once my pace started to bleed into the 6:50s, soon into the 3rd mile; I had no will to fight through it today.  Not sure what the deal was - as good as I felt Sunday, it was the complete opposite today.  Seems like I either feel really good or really bad these days.

71F, 82%.  8:22 AP.  Did a recovery run down to the HS track and back to check the progress of construction.  They've done exactly nothing in the past week.  It's almost like my training doesn't even matter to them.  Looks like it will just have to be 1/2 mile repeats on the road tomorrow...

71F, 82%.  Solid 6 x 0.5 mile workout today.  Of course, no track, so I set the ol' garmin for 1/2 mile laps.  I did 90 second jog recoveries between repeats.  3.5 mile warmup, then:

3:02, 2:58, 3:01, 3:00, 2:57, 2:59.

Average was 2:59.5.  I was shooting for 3:01-3:02, my "CV pace," roughly 10k pace, so I did a little better than that.  Given some hills and the fact that it's mid-July, definitely a good solid pace.

Interestingly, my recovery paces were faster today than they usually are; I averaged just under 8:00 pace on the 90-second recoveries according to Garmin.  Not sure what to make of that yet - I don't pay attention to my watch when I do repeats (except to see when my 90 seconds are up), but maybe I am getting more comfortable at 5-10k paces and it's just not crushing me like it used to.

73F, 80%.  8:49 AP.  Mount Scott!  I went with my neighbor and his friend to run up Mt. Scott today.  It's only about a 20 min drive, and I'd been wanting to do it for awhile (yes there are some "mountains" here).  There's a paved road that goes all the way to the top, about 1000' of elevation gain over 2.5 miles or so (7.5% avg grade).  We were at a 10 min pace most of the way, but I broke off with about .7 to go and made a good push to the top at about an 8 min pace.  Then we all jogged back down, added a few more easy miles on flatter ground, and called it a day.

Today was supposed to be recovery, so I suppose I'll just skip the long run and run short and easy tomorrow.  No sense in doing 3 difficult days in a row.

yep, 4.  that's all I got, my legs are sore.  I am taking it easy for a couple more days and then maybe I can reattack that failed tempo on Wednesday.

71F, 82%, 8:31 AP

71F, 80%.  7:33 AP.  It was nice and cool again today, but I think the fun is over for awhile as we hit the dog days.

75F, 76%.  7:23 AP.  5.5 warmup, then 3.5 at MP.  felt terrible.  Then a mile easy, and one more at MP.  That felt terrible too.  In a rut...

78F, 65%, 8:37 AP.

77F, 62%.  7:46 AP.  No intervals this morning, after an 8-week streak.  I felt like walking just after 3 miles of warmup so I knew it wouldn't work out.  Ran to the trailer park by the lake and took it easy instead.  After passing "Sewer Lagoon," I saw a tiny baby skunk walking around.  He was cute enough that I was almost not scared of him.  Almost.  Then a baby goat came running after me.  Interesting wildlife they have down there.  In the last mile, I did a few sprints.

I have not been on the blog for more than maybe 10 minutes total this whole week, due to work, but I will catch up with everyone soon.  Just when I thought I finally had a reasonable 8-5 job...

79F, 8:18 AP.  Didn't feel like doing 6, so I did less, which was still more than I wanted to do, which was zero.  Maybe tomorrow will bring some more motivation.

80F, 66%.  7:30 AP.  My legs were somewhat fresh from a week of doing no challenging running whatsoever, so I was able to hold a decent pace on a pretty warm morning.  The last few days it's gotten up to 107-108 in the afternoon, which translates to some steamy mornings.  The lack of humidity helped, but I was still wilting a little at the end.

80F, 63%.  8:42 AP.

78F, 69%, S 10 mph.  7:43 AP.  Easy run with some strides and hill sprints at the end.  The last few sprints actually felt smooth and non-awkward, which is a change.

82F, 60%.  7:46 AP.  I thought if I felt good I might do a progressive finish run.  I did not.

82F, 58%.  dont remember the pace, 8:30s-8:40s probably.

73F, 73%.  A lot cooler this morning, so I knew I needed to get in a workout.  I did my last recovery run yesterday to the track and it looked ok.  The lanes weren't painted and it felt a little soft, not quite as springy, but runnable for sure.  So this morning I went down there for 4 x 1600.

I did the first repeat in a nice, controlled 6:15; felt like I was ready to start dropping that down, but about 200m into my second repeat, a worker guy yelled at me saying I couldn't be there because they were doing construction on the track (he was the only guy there and was not doing any construction).  Well, the first thing I did was finish the lap (on the track) because I don't like being scolded.  Then I jogged across the grass to talk to him.  His explanation was actually pretty good - apparently they put the track gunk down in layers every couple days, and you're not supposed to get any "foreign oils" and other stuff on it.  I guess it did feel kind of sticky.  Anyway, it shold be done within a week or two.

Well, I didn't put on my second best pair of flats for nothing, so once I got off the busy road, I did the last 2.75 miles, a good uphill push for the first 2 miles, back to my house to get my 4 fast miles.  6:46, 6:33, 4:30.

85F, 56%, 8:15 AP.  Warm, but I slept in - 8 hours of sleep!  If only there was a way to get that much every night.

Have my parents over for a few days, so instead of running, I played golf with my dad.  I actually shot an 85.  It was definitely a forgiving course, and had some reachable par 5's, but I was hitting it much better than I expected given that I only play 2-3 times a year.

I guess I will find some spots this next week to sneak in some extra mileage.

79F, 48%.  7:34 AP.  Easy, plus some strides and hill sprints toward the end.

Gonna be hot this week - highs in the low 110s, but at least it's a dry heat!

78F, 53%.  8:23 AP.  The low humidity makes it bearable.  The one good thing about a drought, I guess.