Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

50F, no wind.  It all died out right after the race (of course) and hasn't come back yet.  I ran to a wind farm again and most of the windmills were still - you don't see that here much!

Anyway, I took it easy but gradually picked it up to GMP the last 6 or 7 miles.  Felt pretty comfy the whole run.  7:46 AP.

*Here's a link with a short video about the race yesterday.  They caught my finish at about 45 seconds into the video, if you can get it to work.  Then the poor honor guard trying to hold the flags steady in the wind...

40F, 10 mph winds.  Plan was 6 easy, 5 tempo, just looking for sub 7s on the tempo piece.

I didn't hold out too much hope for this workout -- I worked literally 30 hours straight from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening, and went about 40 with no sleep.  However, I got a solid 8 hours last night so I guess it was enough.

6 easy in 8:01 AP, then 5 tempo in 6:52 AP (6:54, 6:55, 6:51, 6:50, 6:52).  Just kept a nice stready pace; felt decent, all things considered.  7:30 AP for the run.

I checked the weather in Longview for Saturday - going to be mid 60s for the race...similar to Houston.  Oh well.  Sub-1:35 is still in play, I think, but my visions of 1:31 or 1:32 are dissipating.

8:19 AP.  Can't think of anything else to say, so I'll just say I hate daylight savings time.

64F, south wind 22-25 mph.  Tough wind today, but I just did base miles anyway, 8:07 AP.  Nothing interesting except that I almost got hit by a fast-moving tumbleweed.  That would've stung a bit.

I'm considering going shirtless for the race on Saturday.  Cons - I will blind oncoming traffic, and there will be race phototography there.  Pros - it will feel a lot cooler, no one will be able to tell how much sweat, gatorade, snot, drool and water I have on me, and maybe it will help me endure a little better...run better splits at the end?  Not sure.

8:11 AP in Longview this morning.  Low 60s and humid, same as the start of the race will be tomorrow.  As expected the day before a race, it felt terrible - like 1:45 would have been tough, forget 1:35.  But I think I know not to pay attention to that.

64F, 92% humidity.  I've never really bombed in a race, so I guess it was about time.  I've probably had half a dozen training runs where I've ended up covering this distance faster.  Most things that could go wrong, did.  I forgot my energy drink/caffeine in the morning, and I normally never do anything more than a recovery run without it.  Then the temp/humidity ended up about like Houston, except we were in direct sunlight for this one.  Today confirmed to me that I lose all my endurance above 60 degrees.  The course was also hilly; it was never flat, always up or down.  I could use some hill training.  To make matters worse, I didn't learn my lesson about adjusting my pace to the conditions, and I started out as if I had perfect conditions again.  I'll steal the Proverbs quote from Preston's blog the other day - "As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly."  So those are my million excuses!  Mostly, I just...ran...bad.  I was pleading for the finish line around mile 4.

7:03, 7:03, 7:12, 7:25, 7:18, 7:32, 7:49, 7:47, 8:04, 8:07, 7:59, 8:04, 7:39, 0:53.

About halfway through, I mentally died.  Probably could have given a little more effort but I had completely wilted mentally and physically in the heat.  Ended up pretty dehydrated as well.  I wish I could pull something positive out of this...guess it is technically a PR, and I got in a solid medium-long run.  Time to take an easy week and reset everything.