Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

Treadmill, 3:45am.  EZ 8 - 8:34 pace plus a 5-minute toilet break in the middle.  Since I started running, this is the first time I haven't been able to fend off a turd.  Combination of caffeine and Gatorade, I think.

Outside run, over 90 F according to the airport but it felt like upper 80s.  I met Mike from the blog, and his friends Antonio and Pete at 4:30am.  It was nice running with other people, and it kept me going.  Once we hit 8 miles (my max so far since April) I started dying and we all sort of split up around mile 9.  I shuffled in around a 9:00 pace for the last mile or so while Antonio took off and Mike tried to catch him.  They are definitely in great shape and I definitely have some work to do.  8:44 AP.

4:30 am, 90 F.  Recovery miles, 9:03 AP.  Even that felt a little tough at the end; this transition from TM to outside has not been kind to me.  It's hard to believe that I ran 6-7 hard weeks on the TM and somehow got slower.  Hopefully there is a payoff at some point.

On the plus side, I had been getting a little PF on my right foot.  It had been getting slowly worse over the last month but never affected my running.  Now after running a few days outside, it's pretty much gone, just like that.  My hip also feels better than it has in awhile.  Maybe it's the slower paces, but I thought it usually worked the opposite way (TM being better for injuries).

4:30am, 90F.  About a 3.25 mile warmup, then 10 x 200m hills with Mke and Antonio, followed by 1 mile cooldown.  I had one good sprint (the first) then 9 painful efforts watching Mike and Antonio from behind.  I'm not smart enough to figure out the avg paces, but the points along the graph show everything from 3:52 pace at the beginning of the 1st one to 7:04 pace toward the end of #8.  Guess that data isn't too useful, other than to show my inconsistency and maybe some sandbagging toward the end.  Good workout for sure - Mike's a little sadistic I think, which is probably a good thing for running.

Thankfully, a day off.  Yesterday I used muscles that apparently have not been used since the 1990s because I am sore.  Butt, hips and upper quads, in that order, are most sore.

I'm working night shift tonight but there's a 5K tomorrow (Friday) morning.  If I get off in time, and regain back normal use of my legs, I will give it a go.

86 F, 5:30am.  I worked night shift last night but got off early enough to go do this race.  2.4 mile warmup jog to get there @ 8:47 pace.  I was still sore but it wasn't really affecting me while running so I decided to actually race it.

My splits were 7:08, 7:06, 6:56, and the last .14 at a 6:15 pace.  Mike was there, and he passed me right before mile 1, calling me a sandbagger again.  He stayed about 5-10 seconds in front of me after he passed by, and I could never seem to quite catch up as he stayed the same distance in front.  We both passed a lot of people toward the end.

Anyway, I improved my 5K time, soft as it was, by almost 30 seconds yet once again fell 5 seconds short of cracking a barrier, just like the HM I ran in April.  There should be plenty more 5Ks here where I can improve further when the temps go down and where maybe I will have slept sometime in the past 24 hours.  Stupid night shift.

2.31 mile cooldown back to my base @ 8:43 pace.

86F.  There was another race this morning - a 3.92-mile race (for the 392d farewell).  I had to pull another night shift last night and did not remotely feel like racing but they were offering free t-shirts so of course I signed up.  I took the lazy way out though and took it easy, doing a little progressive tempo run instead.  So no race report this time...

1.4 mile warmup @ 9:03

3.94 mile tempo @ 7:30 AP (7:51, 7:35, 7:30, 7:02 pace for the last 0.94)

1.59 mile cooldown @ 8:58

Good week of running; my overall mileage took a small step back, but there was a lot of quality in there, and 5/6 were outside.