Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

Meloxicam = wonder drug.  Will be ready to go tomorrow.

7:57 avg pace.  Tried to go slow.  My legs were super-fresh from not running much lately, and the temperature was 48F (as low as I've ever seen it here), so given all that I think I did pretty good at reining myself in.  8:00 pace felt practically comatose today; I'm guessing this is what it feels like to be tapered for a race.  Hopefully I can re-create the feeling in a couple of months.

Tendonitis only made a short appearance toward the end of the run, but felt pretty non-threatening and went away after about 5 minutes.

7:48 avg.  I had a 3 x 2 MP run planned for this week, and I'm becoming confident the tendonitis will not be a factor so I decided to go ahead and do my last 6 at MP.  2 brisk warmup miles, then 7:41, 7:43, 7:42, 7:42, 7:38, 7:42.  Nice and steady, felt great.

I've decided to target 7:45 for MP runs.  My marathon goal is still 3:30 because I'm betting on an ugly finish (first marathon and all), but I think 7:45 makes sense for a starting pace...or at least a good training pace, even if I decide to play it more conservatively for the actual race.  McMillan says 7:44 pace based on my conservative projection of the not-quite-5K race a few weeks ago so why not.

Tendonitis made the same brief appearance today then went away.  I start weaning myself from the NSAID on Monday.

7:45 avg.  Ran mostly in the 7:50s.  But I passed a guy around mile 6 and he annoyingly stayed right behind me even though I was holding a steady pace.  So when we made a turn and I hit a straightaway I wasted him with a little pickup doing the 0.38 stretch in 2:12 (5:47 pace).  I slowed down when it was time to make the next turn, looked back and he was a speck.

8:02 avg.

2 days in a row, same thing happened.  This time it was WAY more blatent.  I turn on to Z-lake, where I like to run (as does everyone) about 150m behind an Army dude.  My plan today was all easy miles and I was at maybe an 8:20 pace.  Very slowly I caught up to Army dude who I'm guessing was running 8:30s.  Now when I pass someone on the trail I like to do it quickly, like ripping off a band-aid, so I sped up to maybe 7:45 pace just to get around him.  Well you can guess what happened.  He's now running 7:45 pace right next to me.  Sped it up to a nice tempo pace to seal the deal and, nope, he's stride for stride with me, shoulder to shoulder.  Ok, maybe he just wants to run with me.  I look over at him with kind of a half smile, stare at him for a good 4-5 seconds and he looks straight ahead, focused.  "Mornin'"  I say.  No response at all.  Weird, right?  Well, now any chance of me doing the mature thing and returning to a jog have gone right out the window.  Sped up to about a 5K pace.  He stays right next to me.  Finally I put on an all-out burst of speed for 10-15 seconds and he dropped back quickly, after the first second or two.  I kept a good tempo pace for the next mile or so to dissuade any re-attacks.  Looked back after a mile and he was gone.  It was annoying at the time but for the rest of the run I felt very pleased with myself  for my win, and did not feel bad about giving into competitiveness.  I think I did the right thing.

8:14 avg.  No one challenged me today, thank goodness.  My quads are actually sore from the whopping 10 seconds of sprinting yesterday...sheez.

8:17 avg.

Ok, it's about that time - my first 20-miler is tomorrow.  My goal is to just get slowly through this one, no fancy progressive finish or MP stuff.  If I can stay healthy I'll be doing 2 more 20+ mile runs before the race, when I can work in some MP.

8:02 average, 2:40:39.  My longest run ever, first 20-miler, is in the books.

I'm not sure why I make statements like "My goal is to just get slowly through this one, no fancy progressive finish or MP stuff" anymore.  Who could've predicted I would deviate from that?  Hmmm...  I got off work pretty late this morning, so I got a late start, chugged an energy drink and took a Gu before I even started.  The Gu was because I hadn't eaten in 6-7 hours (meant to start my run 2 hours earlier).  So I started off at a fast pace due to all the caffeine probably, then didn't want to slow down.  Worked out though.

First 10: 8:17, 8:16, 8:16, 8:16, 8:17, 8:15, 8:13, 8:12, 8:13, 8:14

Last 10: 8:11, 8:09, 8:04, 8:11, 8:00, 7:56, 7:47, 7:42, 7:33, 6:37

Gu at 8, Gu at 15, 60oz of gatorade throughout.  The Gu/gatorade combo does not bother my stomach at all so I will stick with it and take all the carbs I can get.  I felt ridiculously good after 19 so I made a last-second decision to just empty the tank and see how much was left.  Quite a bit apparently, that's a 5K mile for me.  Granted I probably will now need double the recovery time because of that last mile, but it was worth it.  Just for grins, I added up my last 13.1 miles and it came to 1:43:38, about a 7:55 pace.

I can tell that I'm gonna be sore for awhile based on the difficulty with steps.  The cardio is there, the legs are not.  Tendonitis seems pretty subdued (still taking nsaid) but I'll get a better idea tomorrow.

A muddy 8 miles, 8:31 pace.  A storm came through overnight (first rain I've seen in 5 months) and it was actually breezy and wet.  Everything is covered in mud.

My quads are still sore from Friday so I took it nice and easy.

It continued to rain most of the past 24 hours and it was a mess outside this morning.  What kind of a desert is this anyway?  Also, all vehicles on the road were collaborating with each other to force me into every mud puddle on base.  By the second mile my shoes were fully waterlogged.

I slogged through my planned workout anyway, which was 6 easy, 6 MP.  6 easy miles were @ 8:17 avg, then did the MP(ish) miles @ 7:35 avg.  7:56 AP for the run.  The heavy shoes notwithstanding, it felt pretty comfortable.

8:21 pace.

7:33 avg.

I hadn't done a sustained tempo in 4 weeks so I figured it was about that time.  Plan was 6 easy, then 5 fast - the first time I've tried to string together 5 tempo miles in a row.  My target for the fast miles was 7:00-7:10.

6 easy miles: 8:04 avg pace.  I kinda get psyched up mentally before a tough workout and end up doing my warmup miles too fast, but oh well.

5 tempo miles: 6:54 avg!  Splits were 7:05, 6:55, 6:51, 6:55, 6:45.

Pretty motivating workout for me, there have definitely been some fitness improvement spurts going on the past couple weeks.  After backing off in tempo mile 1 to hit my target, I decided to let myself run whatever felt right after that.  I hit that threshold point right around the end of mile 3 and it went from feeling great to feeling tough in about a 60-second span.  I pushed through the weakening legs though, to hold the pace for the last 2 uncomfortable miles.  Mental victory!  That's the most important kind for a dummy like me.

8:31 pace.  Not sore from yesterday, which is good news.

Tomorrow I'm gonna do a test -- run a half marathon at marathon pace (7:45) and see how it feels.  If it still feels nice and easy at the end, maybe I won't be nervous to start the actual marathon at that pace.

Well, as an experiment the run failed but it was a lot of fun.  I was trying to run it at 7:45 pace as a dry run for the marathon but ended up progessively getting faster.  After awhile I quit fighting it and just had fun with the run.

AP 7:26, 1:37:27 (unofficial PR).  Splits: 7:37, 7:34, 7:40, 7:32, 7:28, 7:27, 7:26, 7:24, 7:22, 7:23, 7:15, 7:21, 7:15, 0:44.

Really, it probably ended up being close to HM race pace.  If I was running it as an actual race from the beginning, I doubt it would've been a lot faster -- maybe a couple minutes, tops.  I didn't finish the last couple miles like I would've in a race, so as to have a short recovery, but the effort was pretty solid.

I think I still accomplished part of what I set out to do today because I don't think 7:45 is a crazy pace to start at for the race, seems very doable now.

Ran 6 easy in my trainers (8:10 pace).  Then put on my new shoes - early Christmas present!  They are "flat shoes" that weigh about half of what my trainers do.  Just kinda messed around for a couple miles, and they felt pretty darn good.  The highlight was a little 200m acceleration to start a mile in 36 sec.

I'm testing out photobucket - thanks for the tutorial on posting pictures Burt!  Will have some actual pictures of this place to post tomorrow...

Plan was for 5 warmup, then a 3 x 2 tempo, targeting 6:59, with a half-mile recovery between each 2-mile set.  Total fail today.  I think it's a tough but doable workout for me as long as I'm having a good day; I just felt crappy today for some reason.

The 5-mile warmup felt terrible, even though it was slow.  Just all out of breath for no reason.  But I decided to give the tempo a try anyway.  Kept looking at my watch expecting to see 6-something and would see 7:10 or so - which already felt terrible.  I toughed through one set (6:57, 6:56) and it felt like the last set as opposed to the first.  Anyway, I just shuffled around until I got to 10 and called it a day.  Can't complain too much, I haven't had a bad run in awhile so I was probably overdue for one.

Here's a few pictures of a couple places I usually run over here.

This is Lost Lake which is a 2-mile loop.  The fancy houses are where Saddam's cronies, generals, dignitaries, etc. would stay when they came to Baghdad.

Here's a close-up of one of those houses that took a bomb through the roof in 03.  Too bad, so sad.

Canal I run along every morning.

Right on the other side of the wall is a mosque.  They broadcast the morning prayer every day so loud that I don't even need to run with music.  There are loudspeakers on those minarets.  It's a mix between a chant and a scream.  Who knows what they are saying, but each word seems to take about 5 minutes.  The guy has a terrible voice but he can hold his breath for a long time.

8:15 pace.

This is my 3rd run in a row without anti-inflammatories - so far not too bad.  I can feel the swelling slowly coming back along the tendon, but like the doctor said, that's to be expected until I can take a few weeks off to let it heal.  If it starts messing with my running too much, I still have plenty of magic pills to douse the fire with.

Here you go Burt, this is me on the throne where I sit for my job...as the King of Iraq(unofficial title, crown pending).

Started the first few miles in the low 8's and progressed to a 7:16 finish - 7:49 AP.  Felt way better than Monday; those little recovery runs I've been doing are actually doing their job pretty well.  I definitely like alternating between short and long runs, versus running consistent daily mileage.

8:25 pace.  20 miler tomorrow where I aim to do the last 10 at GMP.  We'll see, we'll see...

7:54 average for this 20-miler -- 10 easy + 10 GMP (target 7:45).

First 10:  1:21:46 (8:11 AP).

Last 10:  1:16:20 (7:38 AP).  Splits were 7:44, 7:41, 7:40, 7:44, 7:39, 7:40, 7:41, 7:38, 7:32, 7:22.

Pretty good run!  It was technically a success but it definitely opened my eyes to how hard it is going to be to go 26.2 miles at GMP.  Maybe too hard.  My legs were really on fire (not in a good way) toward the end.  Of course I went a little faster than goal pace, so that's some of it.  Aerobically, it was ok; my lungs worked a little, but weren't complaining too much.  This time my legs felt way worse than 2 weeks ago.  The faster overall pace, maybe, and the fact that I didn't have anti-inflammatories in my system today probably contributed.  I'm hoping I'll even be able to run in 2 days!

It is pretty important to me not to have a bad bonk/deathmarch to the finish so I am considering starting a bit more conservatively for the race.  Actually enjoying this first marathon is a top priority.

Merry Christmas to all!

Not sore at all from Friday, so a good recovery.  Did 8:11 average today, the last mile ended up being GMP.

There's a contractor that I've seen around the past few months here who looks exactly like Santa - long white hair, long white beard, round belly, etc.  Sure enough, I saw him Christmas morning in the dining facility and he had a Santa costume on.  I thought for awhile it might actually be Santa but then as we were both leaving I saw him get into a little Mitsubishi truck.  Clearly not a sleigh...imposter.

Workout today was 3 easy + 7 MP + 3 tempo.  7:33 AP.

3 @ 8:09;  (8:11, 8:04, 8:11)

7 @ 7:35;  (7:39, 7:37, 7:34, 7:35, 7:35, 7:34, 7:30)

3 @ 6:54;  (7:05, 6:57, 6:39)

Felt great to have a really successful workout today after botching one last week.

8:31 avg.

Started at 7:58 and slowly progressed to a 7:28.  Good effort but still comfortable, AP was 7:42.

Sorry, I didn't get into any fights to write about as I promised... but the guy serving the food in the breakfast line always shakes his head and laughs (and mutters something like 'whew') when I tell him all the stuff I want him to pile on the plate.  I guess I eat a lot.  Maybe I will fight him later.

8:24 avg pace.  Runner's knee is making an appearance on my list of ailments after a 9-month hiatus.  1 month of training left...just 1 more month.

Treadmill miles!  I planned to do 16 (outside) today but it rained all night and was going to continue all morning.  It was also very windy, making it sideways rain.  There is also a lot of dust in the air, making it sideways mud rain.  Anyway, I decided to try it on the TM.

I hacked into the manager's configuration like I used to do this summer and put it into marathon mode where it's not supposed to cut you off.  After the first mile I was pouring sweat; somehow they managed to re-create the sweltering atmosphere from back in July and August when it was 120 degrees outside.  I slogged away and my towel got soaked and useless pretty quickly.  On the bright side there was a placard on each TM console that said "ATTENTION!  DO NOT HOLD FOR THE CONSOLE!!  IT WILL BREAK!"  Guess they didn't translate it perfectly - for some reason that was funny to me and kept me entertained, albeit in decreasing amounts as the sweaty miles went by.  When I got to 99 minutes, the treadmill shut off anyway, and I took that opportunity to quit.  Even now I don't regret it.  Pace averaged 8:10-ish.