Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

75F, 74%.  8:38 AP.  Nice day for a plod.

73F, 75%.  7:39 AP.  Slow start this morning, had to wake up early to get this in before church.  My legs finally woke up around the 6 or 7 mile point, and I even charged a few hills in the last 5 miles or so.

Heat wave this week should end by Friday and my 20-miler next weekend will be a lot more pleasant.

76F, 62%.  8:47 AP.  But, I brought it home with a sub-8:40 on mile 6.

106 degrees for a high today - someone needs to tell Oklahoma that it's September now.  I do see some nice low numbers on the forecast this next weekend though.  I just need to get in some kind of 10K-sharpening workout in this week.  Maybe Friday.

75F, 62%.  7:58 AP.  Never could catch my breath today.  Monday and Tuesday always seem to be kinda rough for me.

78F, 65%.  7:46 AP.  Got up really really early....15 miles completed before 6:45am - ouch.  Tried to keep an honest effort, kind of a hot and cranky run.

76F, 72%.  forgot to look at the AP, but the splits I noticed were 8:40's and 8:50's.

79F, 63%.  Not a good effort today.  I went down to the track for a 4 x 1600, 400m recovery.  Normally I can do these around 10k pace and my goal 10K would have me doing them in about 6:05.  Well, at almost 80 degrees I thought 6:15 would be pretty good, maybe 6:20.  The first one was 6:22 (barely HM pace) and I was completey smoked.  Jogged the recovery lap, which didn't recover me at all, and started on the next one.  I made it to about 200m and bailed on the workout.  It was not going well at all.  This is where a training partner would help - it sure was easy to quit today, and I could have benefitted from sticking it out even with some slower splits.  On the other hand maybe it means I needed the rest, although I've been just jogging around all week anyway.  Cooler weather is on its way, so I'm not worried about the 10k, just wish I could have sharpened up for it a little better.

I took the long way home for my jog of shame and did some sprints along the way.

69F, N 12 mph.  8:18 AP.  Amazing, I went out at 9am and it was still in the 60s.  Looking at mid-50s tomorrow for a 20-miler - finally.  I'm thinking of making it a big workout since I punted the whole week, but don't want to mess with my 10K six days later.  Maybe something moderate at the end.

55F.  7:13 AP.  Ahh.  Well, I couldn't resist turning this into a big workout with these cool temps.  It was 106 degrees on Friday, but an ice-cold 55 this morning.  I ran 14 easy and then wanted to pick it up to a tinman tempo (6:37) for the last 6.

First 14 were mostly 7:30s

Last six were a hair under 6:30 AP.  Splits were 6:37, 6:33, 6:27, 6:26, 6:31, 6:23.

A little faster than I needed/wanted, but for once the legs actually responded to my commands instead of mocking me.  They never felt drained and I think I stayed within myself pretty well.  I believe 6 days is enough to fully recover (in time for the 10K) but I guess we'll see.  I feel pretty good now, a few hours later, so I think with some easy running this week I'll be ready to roll.

58F, 8:45 AP.

AM - 66F, 10 @ 7:55 AP.  Time to start mixing in some doubles to get my mileage up.  I think I will try to run on base at lunch and see how that goes.

PM - 87F, S 16-25 mph.  4 @ 8:28 AP.  Plodded around on the jogging trail on post during lunch.  At least I got something done today.

68F.  7:45 AP.  Grinded out another 15 miles in the dark.  Grind is putting it mildly, I will definitely need these next 2 days for recovery after piling up a bunch of miles right after a hard long run on Sunday.

67F, N 21-27 mph.  8:40 AP.  Recovery day 1 of 2.  As achy/heavy as my legs felt yesterday, I figured 2 recovery days would be better than 1.  When you haven't raced in 4 months, you kind of want to do well.

I'm thinking A goal of sub-38, B goal of sub-39.  It might be a little hilly based on what I've seen on Fort Sill, but not sure yet.

57F, NNE 15-25 mph.  8:30s or so, the cool air felt great.

Should be decent weather for the race - low 60s and humid, but overcast.  Not perfect but nothing that would prevent a PR at least.  Looking forward to it.

61F, 88%, overcast.  Meh, I give myself 4 out of 10 on this one.  Not quite where I want to be, but given the course/conditions, my highest mileage week in awhile and recent lack of track workouts, it was ok.

1 - 6:05 - First mile was flat.  I committed to sub-38 pace for mile 1 to see how it felt.  It didn't knock me out but I started to get the feeling another 5 miles like that was too much to ask.

2 - 6:21 - This mile was on rocky gravel roads and had one nasty uphill, but the effort level probably equaled mile 1.

3 - 6:02 - Back on roads, and got back some of the climb from last mile with a little bit of downhill.

4 - 6:33 - Wow.  I mean this was a net uphill of 30 feet, but still, I was starting to lose it.  Good news is I caught up to Army guy, who was in 6th, and we both started pushing each other.  He would pass me on the uphills and I would pass him going down.  We would stay within a few feet of each other until the end; it really kept me motivated trying to keep up.

5 - 6:27 - Still feeling weak but battling Army guy kept me at least pushing a bit.  Miles 4 and 5 were on the Howitzer trail which had a bunch of annoying ups and downs.  I can try to blame that but the truth is the fitness was not quite there.  In general, you probably shouldn't be going slower than your HM pace on a 10k.

6 - 6:09 - He picked up the pace and I followed.  I was surprised I was able to find that gear, and saw that sub-39 was a real possibility.

6.29 - 1:34 (5:29 pace) - I thought I was going to catch him but just as I was within a couple feet of him, my legs went Julia Lucas on me and he ran away.  I saw the finish line clock tick past 39 minutes.  Boooo!

Polling a couple other people, the average was about 6.3 miles on the Garmins - anywhere from 6.28 to 6.33 miles....hmmm.  My overall AP was 6:14 by my Garmin, enough to get my B goal of sub-39, but I can't really count it based on GPS alone, even if the course was potentially a little long....we'll have to stick with 39:11 which is still a small PR.

I think I have to face facts and realize I can no longer just take huge chunks of time off my PRs anymore.  It's going to get harder and harder to drop time, which I knew would happen.  I just wish I could've had a stronger showing to make me feel better about some of my goals.  The good news is the racing season is just starting down here, and I usually peak in the Spring (Boston?)

63F, 100%, foggy.  7:59 AP.  8-minute pace seemed like an effort today.

Didn't run yesterday, my wife was out of town this weekend (after my race) and I had the kids by myself, so my first MP run of this cycle will be tomorrow.  I probably needed the day off anyway, it's been well over a month since my last one.  Looking to do 16 w/10 tomorrow.  Also looking to keep it under 6:50 pace this time around.  Hopefully this doesn't suck too bad.

59F, N 11 mph.  7:13 AP.

16 w/10 @ MP.  Suceeded in keeping it below 6:50....my AP was 6:49.5.  Legs were still in fatigue mode but I thought it would be good to go ahead and do an endurance run while they were tired like this.

The 6 easy were in the 7:50s, with the 10 MP just below a 6:50 avg (6:49, 6:34, 7:00, 6:49, 6:42, 6:39, 6:54, 6:53, 7:01, 6:52)

The last 3 or 4 were painful, felt like the end of a marathon.  I know the next MP runs will go better, because I will make sure I am more rested, but I am definitely in a hole right now and need to take it easy for the rest of the week.  Still going to call it a successful workout though, because it was.

57F, 8:36 AP.  Felt better today, but I got 7.5 hours of sleep which was unusually nice.  I think lack of sleep may be contributing to my inability to recover from hard efforts.

Anyway, I registered for Boston last night!  Or applied anyway - we shall see if BQ minus 4 will do it.

AM1 - 59F, 6.43 miles @ 8:32 AP.

AM2 - 77F.  Snuck out for 4 miles on the jogging path before lunch.  Forgot my watch, but it's marked every quarter mile so at least I got the distance part right.

67F, 7:33 AP.  Felt good enough to do some strides and hill sprints in the last couple miles.

76F, 8:30 AP.  Short recovery run, so I could get back to help with our oldest, who is throwing up every 30 minutes.

Weird thing on this run - I was up for 3 or 4 hours before I left and didn't eat anything (whoops).  Thus, a bit after 2 miles, I started to feel weak and low-blood-sugary and hungry.  My pace dropped to about 9:30 and I was wondering if I was going to even make it home without walking.  Then about 10 minutes later it went away and my energy was back.  Made it home and felt like I wanted to run more...like it never happened.  Explain that one..

Definitely need to stuff myself between now and tomorrow morning (21-miler).

62F, NNE 11 mph.  7:28 AP.  My tour of small Oklahoma towns no one has ever heard of continues.  I've hit Apache and Fletcher; today I ran to Cyril.  Apache was big time, they had a blinking red light.  We only have a stop sign in Elgin.  Anyway, it was a solid run.  I kept the pace moderate but no need to hit MP since I did that on Tuesday.  Actually the last mile and change were at MP or a little faster.  I had plenty of reserve in the tank today.

Now to sit back and wait for my daughter's stomach virus to hit me.  It's just a matter of 'when.'

67F, 8:28 AP.

AM - 73F, S 10 mph.  Unseasonably warm, yuck.  Forgot to look at AP, guessing about 7:50 for the 10 miles.  I forgot to mention that I was accepted into Boston over the weekend.  My aunt has already agreed to host us in Providence, so it looks like it's definitely going to happen.

68F, 80%, S 15 mph.  7:28 AP.  Ran the last 2 miles hard - 6:27, 6:21.  Kinda hard to get going on mornings when you have to wake up at 4am, but at least I did something other than easy miles this week.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave to go to my brother's wedding; all 4 of us are in the wedding, including the 2 kids (flowergirls).  He's getting married in Hawaii.  We tried to find a way to leave the kids here with family, but everyone wants them to come to the wedding.  So this won't quite be the relaxing trip it could be, but at least we'll get out of Oklahoma for 5 or 6 days.

65F, 97%.  8:36 AP.

Off to Hawaii this afternoon.  Thunderstorms in OKC.  40-minute layover in LA.  2 kids in tow.  What could go wrong?