Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

78F.  It started out around 80 but dropped to a bone-chilling 76 by the end of the run.  Felt very cool.  The 10-day forecast looks especially heinous right now, so it was nice to get this one nice morning.

7:40 AP today.  6 slow miles going out and then picked up the pace coming back (7:26, 7:21, 7:10, 7:06, 7:01, 6:47) averaging 7:08 for the last 6.  Definitely good enough to call this my quality workout for the week.

82F.  8:44 avg.

83F.  8:05 AP.  Today was the day of dirty looks.  I don't see many people out and about where I run, but I passed a guy today who was tending to his goats, and gave him a wave.  His glare almost pierced right through me.  Then there were 2 people out for a walk (this a first on this particular road) and when I said good morning they gave me the most confused stare ever, and said nothing.  What's so strange about a guy running around in the middle of nowhere wearing a fuel belt, reflective belt, and no shirt anyway?  Weirdos.

83F, 8:47 AP.  Warm morning again, whadya know...

83F, S 10 mph.  Somewhere around an 8:15 avg mile, forgot to look, but it took 2:03-something.  Felt more like a 7:15 effort anyway.

Not sure what the deal was, but my legs were dead today.  Normally I can get going after 3 or 4 miles but not really today.  Just felt slow and tired the whole time.  As an added bonus I feel like I ran 20 instead of 15.  Yuck.

I'm trying to get myself ready for a Pfitzinger plan that I'll start in September, and he has a lot of MLRs on the schedule.  Hopefully today was just an off day, and not me trying to over-reach with mileage.

82F, S 10 mph.  Track day.  12 x 400 (200m active recovery) was the workout, was not looking forward to it.

I ran to ACU and jogged around campus for awhile, then hit the track with about 8 miles on the watch; fairly slow warmup.  It's funny, during the week the track is unlocked at every entrance but on Sunday everything is locked except for one gate, and I always have to jog around to find it as they seemingly rotate which gate is open.  Finally found a way in, and started the intervals.  My goal was just to run smoothly and keep it below 5k pace.

1:31.8, 1:31.7, 1:28.0, 1:33.9, 1:30.8, 1:32.7, 1:33.5, 1:33.7, 1:32.7, 1:32.1, 1:32.2, 1:29.0.

Average 400 was 1:31.8 (6:09 pace), and much slower for the 200s.  The 200m recovery jogs got slower and slower, paces started in the low 8:00s and eventually almost hit 10:00 as I got tired.  So painful.  Not smooth at all once I got to 7 or 8 repeats.  I told myself I could go ahead and give up if I couldn't keep at least 1:35, but the splits kept unfortunately coming in below.  I had to walk a good 100m after the last one to collect myself, then slowly made my way home.

Anyway, the real highlight today is my oldest daughter's birthday party (she turned 5 earlier this week).  I have only been around for 1 of her birthdays so far, so this one will make me 2-for-5.  Poor kid!

82F, S 15 mph.  8:57 AP.  Legs were pretty crushed from yesterday's workout, so I let them go whatever pace they wanted.  They were not too ambitious.  I'll do more easy running like this tomorrow and will hopefully be ready to tackle the rest of the week on Wednesday.

AM - 82F, S 12-18 mph.  6 more easy miles at an 8:54 avg.  I'll do a few more this evening.  Should be awesome with a high of 107 today.

PM - 104F, SSE 14-24 mph.  5 @ 8:55.  I thought if I left at 7pm the sun would be low enough to give me some shade.  I thought wrong.

81F.  8:07 AP.  Slog miles.  I actually felt pretty good to start and found a solid pace early, but unfortunately forgot half my gatorade.  I was almost sure that the 20 oz I had would not cut it for me for a 2-hour run in the heat, but I decided to keep going anyway and (not surprisingly) faded badly as I dried out.  Oh well, next time I'll turn around to retrieve the fluids I need...lesson learned.  Took the direct route home which cut out about 0.4 miles, thus I was a little short of the planned 15.

Treadmill...  I flew last night and by the time I got home it was almost 4am so the run just wasn't happening this morning.  I just did 4 on the TM later @ 8:41 pace, pretty much just for the sake of putting up something instead of getting a goose egg for today.

78F, 72% humidity.  This was the first time in a couple weeks that we actually dipped below 80 in Abilene, although it came with a little humidity.  Definitely not complaining though!

7:44 AP today - felt good today so did the standard feel-it-out-but-not-too-crazy progressive run.  First 7 miles in the low 8's, then 7:40, 7:40, 7:38, 7:32, 7:27, 7:24, 7:15, 7:03, 3:11 (for the last 0.51).  Good way to end the running week after the stinker on Wednesday.

74F, 87% humidity.  Got 3.5 inches of rain on Friday night, which now accounts for more than a third of our rainfall for the year.  Yeah, kinda dry here.  Anyway, the storm cooled things off this weekend and made for a nice run this morning.

7:48 AP today.  Took a new route out to the wind farms and got some decent hills.  The last 8+ miles were all between 7:20-7:32, and as I finshed I felt like I could've run forever at that pace.  I was consciously slowing my pace to save gas for the rest of the week.  Amazing what a difference a few degrees makes.

76F, 76%.  Really early start to a long day.  9:09 AP.

AM - 80F, S 10 mph.  7 miles @ 9:01 AP.  Hoping to be ready for some intervals tomorrow.  It definitely couldn't have happened today - felt kinda worn out.

PM - 4 on the treadmill, 8:41 pace.

77F.  I did my big workout for the week today at the track.  Stole the idea from Flatlander and did 6 x 1000m, with 600m active recovery.

First, a 6+ mile warmup, averaging 8:04/mile.

Then the 1000s were 3:48, 3:52, 3:48, 3:49, 3:53, 3:47.  Average was 3:49.5 - if you're like me a 1000m time means nothing to you, so 3:49.5 converted to min/mile is 6:09 AP.  The 600m recovery jogs averaged about 8:40/mile.

Really happy with my performance today.  If I recall, I recently did 12 x 400m at the same avg pace.  It was about 5 degrees cooler today though, with less wind, and a slightly higher percentage of recovery time today, but these 1000s were controlled while I was flailing on the 400s.  The recovery time was still in the 50-90% range recommended by Pfitz in his book (although I came pretty close to 90% on my slower recoveries toward the end) so I'll chalk this workout up as a success.

Cooled down back home until I got to 15 miles total.  7:43 AP on the day.

78F, felt cooler though.  8:41 AP on this recovery run - my legs actually were not dead today...somehow.

Saw a guy walking along the highway in street clothes toward Abilene (very unusual on that stretch of road).  As I passed by, he asked me if that was Abilene (and pointed toward it).  I said, yeah about a mile past that hill.  Then as I jogged away I realized he was probably just released from the prison and had probably walked about 5 or 6 miles already.  I guess if they don't have a ride they just kick them out the front door and say "good luck, nearest town is 7 miles that way."

77F.  7:37 AP.  Skunk day today, I saw 2 live skunks.  Found out they are not intimidated by humans.  The first one actually scurried up toward me, to meet me at the side of the road with his tail straight up in the air.  Within a second I was running in the ditch on the opposite side; I don't think I've ever moved that fast.  Did not get sprayed by either one, fortunately.

The run was great other than that.  I'd planned to mostly take it easy but started to really pick it up on the way home.  Last 6 were 7:24, 7:22, 7:19, 7:08, 6:53, 6:19.

I think I'm on the verge of an improvement spurt, but probably can't really assess that until it cools down -- this is a run I probably could have done this past spring but probably could not have pulled off for most of this summer.

Oh yeah, and I finally hit 70 miles in a week!  I'll step back a little next week with about 50, then try to hit a couple more 70-mile weeks before rolling into my official training plan.

79F.  This is my easy week -- I averaged 67 miles/week over the last 3 weeks so I'll cut mileage back about 20% this week to rest up.

7:39 AP today, pretty evenly paced effort.  I'm getting excited about how certain paces are starting to feel.  I did have the fast shoes on, but this still felt a lot easier than it should've.  Later on in the week I'll do a tempo to better figure out where I'm at.

78F.  8:52 AP.

First day of kindergarten!  She seemed to be doing fine.  The 5-year-old and the 31-year-old, that is.

81F.  Warm morning...if today plays out as forecasted, it will be our 70th day hitting 100F this year.  Maybe by October we'll get some cooler temps.

8:24 AP today - somewhere between recovery and aerobic base effort.  The best part about this rest week: no double today.

80F.  8:06 AP.  Meh.  I put on the go-faster shoes thinking I might do a tempo but was not feeling it at all.  It was dark, early, hot, whatever, and I could just never get going, so I just let the legs do whatever they wanted.  I'll take it easy tomorrow and go fast on Friday whether I feel like it or not.

81F.  Kind of a slow, refreshing run this morning just before sunrise.  8:55 AP.

76F, 80%.  Geez, everytime it drops a few degrees we get some humidity with it..

Anyway, I needed a good laugh so I figured I'd try the last 6 @ GMP today (7:03).

First, a brisk 6-mile warmup @ 7:56 AP.

Then 6 GMP @ 6:56 AP.  Splits were 6:57, 7:05, 6:55, 6:54, 7:01, 6:40.

7:26 AP for all 12.

Weeeell, let's face it - GMP is pretty much tempo pace right now.  Yeah, I know it'll get cooler but there's still a ways to go before 7-minute miles = MP.  Overall, not a bad run though.  I had to start today at 4:30am so the run was completely in the dark -- with the Garmin 405 I have to lock the bezel in the summertime due to the sweat flying...that means I can't turn on the light and use it for pacing.  The only glimpse I get of my pace is when it beeps each mile and lights up.  No street lights where I run.  So one positive takeaway is that I (more or less) set the right pace without looking.  Just wish it wasn't such a miserable-feeling pace.

78F to start, 83F finish.  Started in darkness, but the lack of shade made it feel hotter in the last few miles when the sun rose.  Anyway, I took it mostly easy today so no big deal - 7:57 AP.

Gotta remember not to run down that section of Wildcat road anymore.  Every single residence had 2 or 3 dogs running loose and it was a competition to see who could be the biggest nuisance.  The winner was this tiny, prissy white dog who almost nipped my heel.  The houses there are spaced out every quarter-mile or so, but it was a 2+ mile stretch...

84F.  8:45 AP.  Looks like the lows will finally drop to mid-70s by the end of the week which should feel great after mornings like this.

AM - 84F, S 14 mph.  5.11 miles @ 8:51 AP.  I screwed up my alarm setting and woke up late, so this was all I had time for.  As it was, I had to run all the way to the shower; found out I can arrive back at home from a run and be completely ready to go 8 minutes later (including the shower).  Anyway, I was already planning to double today, so it just means a longer TM run this evening.

PM - 6 TM miles this afternoon, 8:45 AP, with a couple TM-style strides at the end to loosen up.  Apparently my normal BK lunch is 1400+ calories (looked it up).  So that was definitely still digesting as I ran.

82F, S 10 mph.  Slogged it out today, 8:06 avg.  Just surviving until the worst of the heat passes which should be soon.

I got a couple new pairs of Kinvaras in the mail.  They were on sale for only $59 at Eastbay as long as you don't mind black shoes, which I don't.  The problem is that now I feel like a chick with 6 pairs of shoes in the rotation.  At least I won't need anymore for awhile.