Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

AM:  72F, 92%.  8 @ 7:50 AP.  Relatively cool morning.  Included 5 x 2 minutes around 6-minute pace, or a little under.

The trail I always run on is the Leon Creek Greenway.  Leon Creek cuts through the west side of town.  Actually, I'd compare it to how the Colorado river cuts through the Grand Canyon - probably equal in its majesty, although I've never been to the Grand Canyon to do a direct comparison.  That being said, we obviously have scenic overlooks - here's proof:

And now, drumroll....here is the vista:

One day, when I'm ready, I WILL bag that peak, which towers nearly 50 feet above the surrounding terrain.

PM:  85F, 67% (H/I 92F).  4 @ 8:38 AP.

We got some rain yesterday, so the creek had some water in it today.  Here's a view from a bridge I run across a lot.  I just had to stop and take in the beauty.

Did you even know such vivid colors could exist in nature?  Probably not.

AM:  69F, 90%.  6 @ 8:45 AP.  A sub-70 degree morning in July is crazy.  If I hadn't signed up for a 4th of July race, I would've taken advantage with a long tempo or something, but instead I just plodded around for rest.  Still enjoyed it though.  Probably going to skip the PM run today.

One of the problems with the greenway is the overpopulated deer, which aren't afraid of humans.  I came running up on this one and she was obviously in no hurry to get out of the way.

I petitioned city council to import some Bengal tigers to help eradicate the deer, but they won't even bring the issue up for a vote.

Here's another shot of the beautiful scenery.   The telephone poles just seem to continue infinitely off into the distance.

Stunning.  Sometimes I wonder just how far they really go.

Maybe forever, SlowJoe.

Maybe forever.

AM:  75F, 95%.  5 @ 8:05 AP.  Took the mutt along - he hasn't gone on a run in awhile and was dragging behind at the end.  That's probably it for today - race tomorrow!  Taking the kids to sea world / aquatica later today.

Here's what the creek looks like most of the time (dry):

So use your imagination - close your eyes and picture the brown rainwater flowing gently under the bridge.  Listen to the sound of the trash and litter clinking gently against the concrete pillars as it flows along...heaven.

Here's another incredible sidewalk pic for Allie:

2 words:  RAVE RUN.

On the other side of that construction, I managed to capture a picture of what your run-of-the-mill, average chainsaw looks like in Texas:

You actually can't pass 5th grade here until you learn how to use it.

AM1:  77F, 90% (DP 74F).  First race in quite awhile, but I basically met my expectations.  I'm pretty awful when the dew point creeps into the mid-70s, so I only expected between 24 and 25 minutes, which is right where I was.

The race started at a big soccer complex, so I got a nice warmup on the grass.  This is one of San Antonio's most well-attended races next to the Rock & Roll, so it's actually pretty competetive (the guy that won beat me by ~5 minutes...in a 4-miler - ouch!).

Race started and I just hovered around 6-minute pace at first to see how doable it was.  We hit some kind of uphill ramp to nowhere and then turned around and came back down - first mile was 6:05.  Mile 2 was the XC mile, which kind of surprised me.  It had 2 sections that went through some tall grass (nothing like the nice short soccer field grass) and you kind of had to high-step a little.  I'd say between the 2 sections, there was only half a mile total in the high grass - that mile ended up being a 6:09.  Mile 3 I found myself alone - guys in front were too far up and no one pushing me from behind.  Fortunately it was all flat concrete and I ran it in 6:03.  Last mile, I was hot, hurting and unmotivated, and it was a 6:11.  14 bonus seconds and 0.05 miles later I was done, mission accomplished.

The main reason I entered the race, other than for the fun of racing, was to get in a good, hard effort that I wouldn't have otherwise pushed myself to undertake in the heat/humidity.  So, to that end, I was successful.  3rd in AG as a bonus (we hobby joggers love to measure ourselves against similarly decrepit runners).

AM2:  1 mile run with Elle.

75F, 94%.  20 @ 7:44 AP.  Knocked out another solid long run today.  As usual, took it out slow and let the legs settle into whatever pace they wanted.  It stayed overcast throughout the run and it felt a lot cooler than yesterday's race.

Headed down to the coast today - the second annual family vacation to Padre Island!  Looking forward to some R&R, I think we all need it.

80F, 97% (DP 79F).  8 @ 8:38 AP.  Nice run right at sunrise, down south padre island drive.  SPID is not the most picturesque run, but it was nice and quiet in the morning.  Afterward, I ran a mile with Elle.

81F, 92% (DP 78F).  8 @ 8:28 AP.  I decided to head the other way today and ran to Mustang Island.  Looked pretty much the same as Padre island except there was 20x the traffic, and some narrower shoulders.  So tomorrow I'll head south again.

79F, 99%.  10 @ 8:21 AP.  More peaceful vacation-paced miles down the barrier island.  I woke up a little earlier and decided I could afford a couple extra miles this morning.  It is really nice not waking up to an alarm - I could definitely get used to this...

Also, I had a cheeseburger and a fried dough ball for breakfast.

And the seagulls enjoyed some bread ends...

80F, 90%.  8 @ 8:34 AP.  I did these miles on the beach, felt pretty good!  That was my last run here, we're headed back to SA this morning.

On a sad note, my last pair of Kinvara 1's is on its way to the Corpus Christi dump.  They are riddled with holes, waterlogged, sandlogged, sweatlogged and probably other kinds of logged I don't even know about. Thanks for the 1220 miles and RIP.

Alright, time to start cleaning up the beach condo a little so they don't think we're complete savages.

************

On our way out we skipped out on all the seafood places and went to the largest Whataburger in the world ("Whataburger by the Bay").  There is too much redneck in both of our bloodlines to pass that up.  We drove by 7 or 8 other Whataburgers to get to this one.

Most of you probably don't even know what Whataburger is, which means your life is incomplete.

AM:  76F, 88%.  7 @ 7:50 AP.  included a very begrudging 6 x 1 min strides @ 3k-5k pace.  So out of the ~10 hours of running I'll have this week, there will be 6 total minutes of actual effort...I'll take it!  Vacation summary:

# of vacation days:  4

# of total miles:  35

# of sub-8:00 miles:  0

PM:  Short on time so my 5-miler outside turned into a quick 4-miler on the TMs at work.  1 mile each @ 7, 8, 9 and then 10+ mph.  Tripled my "fast miles" for the week!

74F, 93% -> 78F, 85%.  21 @ 7:47 AP.  so sloggy.  Legs weren't in the running mood either, despite the easy week...took me 8-9 miles to catch the 8-minute guy this morning.  Maybe it was the whopping effort I put in yesterday.  It always surprises me how my legs adamantly refuse to adapt and recover from anything.

But, the good news is another LR is in the books.  That's 3 weekends in a row now, so maybe cut few miles off next weekend's LR.

74F, 94%.  6 @ 8:59 AP.  Ran around the construction in the neighborhood - there are a lot of new roads that have been cleared, but not paved, and the packed dirt makes a great running surface.

Oh, I forgot to post this yesterday, but it's important.  As I was running shirtless down Potranco road, a lady slowed down to yell "WOOOOOO!" at me.  This makes 2 times now.  in my lifetime.  I looked, and there is unfortunately no tracker for this on the blog, which is weird.  I mean it's a much more important metric than sleep, shoe miles, weight, etc.

AM:  76F, 89%.  8 @ 8:22 AP.  Legs are still shot, so it's looking like a Wednesday workout, not Tuesday as I'd hoped.  DP is forecasted to be in the 70-72 range on Wed, so I MIGHT even be able to get away with some mediocre mile reps without wanting to quit after the first 2.

PM:  91F, 4 @ 8:37 AP.  oooowwwww come back to me, legs.

AM:  73F, 89%.  8 @ 8:11 AP.  Some really spread out strides over the last 2-3 miles.  It is really taking my legs a long time to feel ok in the morning.  Like 45 minutes + of jogging before I don't feel terrible.  The first 15-20 minutes has always felt rough in the morning but it's reached remarkable levels now...like barely-making-it-up-hills levels.  So I'm not sure what's up with that, but the strides actually felt semi decent.  So I'll give the mile reps a try tomorrow; hopefully it'll be cooler like it was this morning.

PM:  89F (H/I 93F).  4 @ 8:36 AP.  Post-Carl's Jr run...when will I learn?  I'm pretty wiped out and don't even know if I should bother going to the track tomorrow, but I probably will anyway.

AM:  75F, 89%.  6 miles. Workout fail at the track today - went out for a 6 x 1 and I got through 1 rep.  I ran a strained 6:21 and pretty much walked off the track right then, almost unconsciously, it was pretty abrupt.  I've had plenty of workout fails but that one was pretty spectacular.

AM2:  When I got to work it was still 6:30, so instead of doing actual work, I hopped on the TM for 5 more, and added 10 x (1 minute on/off).  Now THERE'S a workout I can get used to.

I'm not ready to give up on the mileage experiment yet, but I'm close.  Over the past 18 weeks, I've averaged 77+ miles/week and it seems like it's not doing anything.  I just get a little slower every week.  I've been assuming that your body will eventually just adapt to anything but maybe not.  I could call this a long base phase, hit a couple months of speed work @ 60-65/week, then back to high mileage before my 50-miler and probably be fine.  But first I want to try cutting the long runs back to 1 every 3rd week.  I'll also move most of my PM runs to the TM, keeping 1 or 2 outside for heat conditioning.  Hopefully that combo will give me enough life to get me through the summer, but if not, I'm ok scaling back until October.

PM:  meh, that's enough for today

AM:  74F, 88%.  5 @ 8:43 AP.  Thought it over, read some articles last night and concluded I need to change it up a little, and cycle my running more, even if my next big race is a 50 miler.  Job 1 is to dig out of my current hole with some short, easy days.  Then I have a few plans, most of which I hatched on this morning's run.  I'll post it once I've plotted it out a bit more.

PM:  4 slow ones on the TM.  I think this will help - it's a lot less effort than doing it in the heat.  I will still try to do 1-2 a week outside in the afternoon to keep up my heat conditioning.

AM:  76F, 88%.  5 @ 8:49 AP.

I sketched out the next 4 months or so.  One upcoming problem was that I am taking the kids to Florida in early August by myself and probably looking at 4 consecutive days with no running at all.  My solution to that is a supercompensation cycle (Jul 27-Aug 16; 3 weeks).  Should be ok as long as I go in with rested legs.  Next up is a 6-week 5k training cycle (Aug 17-Sep 27).  Then a 6-week block of ultra training, followed by a 2-week taper.  This is about what it'll look like, extremely subject to change:

Decoder ring:  italics is a double.  Underline means to add in strides somewhere.  I've never planned strides before but I'm so bad about doing them that I thought maybe I should.  The other thing is that I probably run ~5-10% fewer miles than I plan for (on average) when I draw it out like this, due to work/life demands, so that cushion is included.  My wife and I are probably going on a cruise to Jamaica in October (pending childcare) so that week is kind of a question mark - 10 miles/day is pretty optimistic but with my race so close, maybe I'll be inspired...

PM:  4 poky TM miles.

77F, 87%.  7 @ 7:48 AP.  Last mile was a net downhill 5:40.  Legs aren't completely broken, but the first 6 miles still felt pretty bad.  Going to cut back next week, and make sure I'm fully dug out of this hole before starting supercompensation.  I'd put the odds @ 50/50 that I make it through those 10 days without aborting, but I've been wanting to try it for awhile to see if it'll give me some kind of boost, and it seems like a good block for ultra training.

AM:  76F, 89%.  6 @ 8:37 AP.  Took the dog along to run the neighborhood construction route.  After 4 miles or so I noticed him panting differently and he seemed to have foamy drool so I dropped him off at home @ 5 miles.  While I finished up my run he went to the closest carpet (had to go upstairs) and threw up on it.  When I put him in the backyard I noticed his legs were pretty unsteady and he wasn't looking too good.  So I hosed him off outside and gave him a big bucket of water.  He's one of those dogs that would run himself to death if he thought it would please his human master...so I probably need to drop him off a little sooner next time.

AM:  75F, 91%.  6 @ 7:58 AP.  with Lackluster Strides.

PM:  4 TM miles, with a few more 5k strides.  Workout tomorrow.  I guess.

Decided to do my workout on the TMs at the gym at work - my fragile psyche can't take another workout fail on the track.  So I did 10 x (2 min on / 1 min off).  Increased the speed every rep - the on's started at 10.0 and ended at 11.0 (skipped 10.1 when I realized my kindergarten counting skills were rusty).  The off's were all @ 6.7.  Works out to a solid 20 minutes total at ~5k avg.  The most important thing is that I actually did what I set out to do, which makes this an atypical workout.

Alright, laying low the rest of the week to be ready for supercompensation on Monday...

AM:  77F, 82%.  6 @ 8:27 AP.  Last mile or two I had to pick it up a little to > recovery pace, as a couple people were trying to race me (in my mind).  We all know I don't take too kindly to that (trail rage).

PM:  4 mile TM plod.

AM:  76F, 87%.  6 @ 8:42 AP.  yyyyyyyyyep.

PM:  95F.  4 @ 8:23 AP.  Sticker burr season is here, adding a degree of difficulty to my soft-surface running attempts.

Beautiful, really.  If you listen closely, you can hear Mother Nature whispering, "Stay the &@$! away from me."  

Fortunately I can take my shoes off without untying them.  My plan is to pay one of my kids to take them off.  What is a fair price per burr?

AM:  77F, 87%.  6 @ 8:29 AP.  Legs still cruddy and tired....why, I don't know.  I'm running a total of 12 miles the entire weekend, so that should fix me.  Sometimes I think I have one foot in the grave already.

PM:  4 TM miles with fast strides...although all the stride speeds feel the same on the stupid 'mill.  I was just too pooped to do them this morning outside.

76F, 90%.  7 @ 7:55 AP.  I never had much of a chance for a run yesterday but it was probably good - it's been about a month since my last day off.  Next week is my supercompensation experiment: 10 days on, then 10 days "off."

So in the next 10 days I am targeting ~17 miles/day, then an equal and opposite down period which will start with 5 days completely off.  Ideally, I'd only take 1 or 2 days off and get in some light jogging after that but I'm not expecting that opportunity since it'll just be me and the kids in a hotel.

Let's see what happens - I'd give myself about a 50/50 shot at making it through what I've planned.

AM:  77F, 89%.  16 @ 7:47 AP.  Felt pretty good this morning after the low mileage last week.  It'll be fun to see how slow my pace is 10 days from now.

PM:  5 mile TM plod.  Little known fact that 5 mile TM plods take twice as long as 4 mile TM plods.

AM:  77F, 85%.  8 @ 9:03 AP.  I did my 2 + 6 workout: a 2 mile hobble followed by a 6 mile plod.  Luckily I budgeted 80 minutes for this 8-miler when I set my alarm last night, so I crushed it compared to that.

PM:  5 on the TM, with 6 x 1 min @ 5k.  Only 15 more runs to get through!

AM:  76F, 89%.  16 @ 8:14 AP.  Bonked pretty hard in the last mile.  50/50 might have been a tad optimistic...

PM:  5 more plodding on the TM.  At lunch, I had another gorge session at an Asian buffet (2nd time this week) and it made me feel a little better.  Although it was a little sad - I didn't have anyone go with me today so I sat in the corner by myself, just shoveling in mounds of fried rice until it hurt.

AM:  74F, 83%.  8 @ 8:47 AP.  Drier and cooler this morning...almost felt chilly outside at first!  

PM:  96F.  5 @ 9:06 AP.  Did my weekly heat slog, felt pretty bad.  Back on the TM tomorrow afternoon.

AM:  79F, 60%.  10 @ 8:35 AP.  San Antonio was converted to a desert and it felt amazing outside this morning...64 degree DP!  I would gladly take 80-degree lows all summer if we could get a DP like that on a regular basis.  Anyway, it helped me not bonk today, which makes me happy.

PM:  5 on the TM with 10 x 30 second strides.  Started at 11.5 mph and worked up to 14.0.  Felt a little different than running 8-10 minute pace all week.  If there's one thing I've learned from Crossfit, which I've never done, it's that you have to trick your muscles into improving.