Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

70F, humid & hazy.  MP run.  ~4 easy, 2 @ MP (9:04, 8:47), remainder easy.

We're in for it now. Major heat wave all week. I don't believe the temperature has ever been this high around here so early in the morning (5:15am) since I started running.  

Another first for me - 2 days out from my 20 miler, and no soreness.  None. (I am always most sore 2 days after major exertion.)

My MP miles were separated by a minute of slow jogging. I really didn't want to break them up like that but I was burning up and breathing too hard. The second one was too fast, but it felt the same as the first. As soon as I finished I found some sprinklers to run through. Ah.

I've been taking barefoot walks with Mr. Sno for a couple of weeks to see if I could toughen up my feet. I could never understand why the advice on getting started with barefoot running always focused on foot strength and not on skin issues.  Sure enough, the skin on my feet has responded extremely fast  and is much tougher, whereas the feet themselves still feel like they absolutely collapse with each step.  Today I carried my shoes in my hand the last .3 of a mile, and ran alternately on grass and cement.  I have a long ways to go in building foot strength, which surprised me because I've worn my racing shoes almost exclusively lately.  It's true, our feet just don't have to work in shoes. Maybe that's why humans started making them in the first place; we are so good at labor saving devices. 

72F at 4:50 AM!  Very humid.  Ug.  "Easy" run.  20 min. strength work in nice, cool basement...

 This was like running through soup.  Fortunately, there were plenty of sprinklers going and believe me, I ran through every one of them. 

Why oh why did I sign up for a half marathon on August 1?  The worst of our heat wave will have passed, but it's still forecast to reach the 80s that day.  I might just have to fun-run it, but it was supposed to be a speed workout for me.  I wonder how much acclimatization I can get by the warm air running I will have done this week.  Ah well, there is always the shirt.

People are going to be talking about this for years to come. The headline of the Seattle Times this morning reads, "Hottest Day Ever?"  Like the Seattle earthquake in 2001, and the blackout in December 2007 (my neighborhood was without power for 5 days), this heat will become legend. At least I hope it does, because that would mean it wasn't repeated again and again. 

The thermometer on my porch this morning read 78F at 5:30 AM - speed work canceled.  Weirdly, the wind was blowing, which helped immensely. It is incredible to think that six months ago we had some of the lowest temps ever, and drifts of snow in my yard that were as tall as I am.

Yesterday afternoon there were reports of it being 104F in parts of the Snoq. Valley and someone in North Bend reported 110F -- it sounds impossible but, where we are situated, elevation differences of 500 ft. can produce wildly different temperatures.  Today's forecast: even hotter.

And now I present... The Art of Justification.  My beautiful ("Blooms" design) little Franklin Planner calendar for today says "6-7 mi w/ VO2: 10 x .25 mile."  Hahahahahaha. Excuse me.  Honestly, if the whole summer was like this, I'd bite the bullet and do my speed work. I really would.  Then again, if the whole summer was like this, I'd move to Scotland.  One eensy little part of my brain said I should run a bit faster to "practice" for Saturday's Half-m.  Hahahahahahaha.  If the mercury is over 70 on race day, I'm going to jog, chat, collect my tshirt and come home.

80F at 5:00 AM, w/ pockets of hotter and cooler air throughout neighborhood.  Objective: sprinkler patrol, last .4 barefoot.  20 min. strength work.

I promised myself I wouldn't complain about the weather today, but now I find I have nothing else to talk about. Plus I'm rushed.  Have a great day!

65F, clear w/ haze. Objective: short & sweet.  +Inaugural run in VFFs. 

Marine Layer. Mah-reeeeeeen layer... ahhhhh.

Here is what came in the mail yesterday:

Observations from my short trial run in them:

-It takes me a long time to get them on. Also, there is a weird brain glitch wherein I see the VFF toes and have a hard time believe that my toes are not in the right pockets. Hopefully this will get smoother with time.
-The VFF's spread ones toes apart, exactly the opposite of what women's shoes have been doing to me for 50+ years.  Interesting sensation, not uncomfortable but I do notice it.
-There is a little ridge at the bottom of the ball of the foot (ie the edge of the ball of foot that is closest to the heel), and this ridge is exactly where my foot lands.  It was somewhat bothersome at first and then I forgot about it.  I hope it will not be a problem; I never read anyone else complain of it in the 40 bazillion websites I went to before I bought these.
-The skin protection is AWESOME, but other than that, truly barefoot running is more comfortable. 
- I am REALLY slow in these, even though I don't feel slow.  It will be interesting to see whether increasing foot strength overcomes lack of "energy return" that one gets from the bounce of shoes.

A great beginning. I am looking forward to seeing where this takes me.  I expect to take my time. Evolution, not revolution.

Race start  7:30 AM  58F w/ FOG!!!! at the start, sunny and 67F at the finish.

Executive Report (caution, exclamation point abuse ahead):  UNDER TWO HOURS!!  (A first!) And a 6 minute PR! With hills!! Five of my miles at or below what I consider to be a “tempo run.”   I only pause occasionally in my incessant grinning, to facilitate a few tears of joy.

I left home at 4:30 AM in total darkness to catch the early shuttles from Tacoma to the race start in Gig Harbor.  I got an awesome free parking space just two blocks from the finish.  I don’t believe in omens at all, but in hindsight it’s pretty fun to pretend that’s what it was.  And then another one: fog! As the shuttle approached the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the previously clear skies suddenly had a bit of low clouds about, and next thing you know - fog!  I wonder where I can purchase a bumper sticker that says “i (heart) fog.”

But not everyone likes fog, the poor dears.  I distinctly heard some complaining from the seat behind me, and our bus driver was having trouble finding the way.  I knew this shindig was “by the airport” (a very small airport  in Gig Harbor), but it turns out that the start is IN the airport.  Not such a good feeling, to be lost in the fog and suddenly be passing small aircraft... visions of wandering onto a landing strip tried to break into my fog-induced calm.

But we made it there all right.  The packet pick up was inside a hangar - how cool is that?  A small plane and a helicopter sat nearby as I waited in line.  I soon saw AuntieEm and another Ravelry friend. It was actually COLD, with a breeze and the fog.  What a happy feeling, after the 100+ temps this week.  

I had 2 trips to the Honey Buckets, 1 to the woods (long lines at the HBs!), and warmed up with 1.43 of jogging and some drills.  I joined the crowd at the start 5 minutes before gun time, but the race was another 10 minutes late.  All the while, there is a loudspeaker up near the front, which sounds (as it always does) like, “Wah wor ver har her wah wor race ver raha werwa roh...”  What? Something about the race?  When will they learn we cannot hear anything past the first 10 bodies?

Course map is here: http://tacomanarrowshalf.com/map.html, but the elevation chart that accompanies it seems quite inaccurate. For one thing, it appears to follow terra firma under the water instead of over the bridge!

(1) 9:00  Gun goes off, and despite the fact that I’m lined up appropriately I am surrounded by - walkers!  Gaa!  The first mile was quite crowded, so I went ahead and did a bit of weaving.  I felt really good, but tried not to spend too much energy playing dodge-the-jogger.
(2) 8:27  We were running on a highway through very tall conifer forests, full of fog.  :D  Absolutely beautiful; classic Pacific Northwest. Bit of downhill here and a turn onto the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  Bit of downhill in this mile.
(3) 9:00  The bridge is about a mile long and the first half goes uphill of course. It actually felt like a longer segment than half to me, but that may have been an illusion.  There was a cross wind on the bridge that was fairly strong here. Had to be careful with those cowboy-sneezes.
(4) 9:01  We finished the bridge and immediately had another hill to climb.  I still felt extremely zippy, and I wasn’t sure how long the fog would last, so I kept my pace up a bit higher than I normally would on a hill.  We crossed a freeway and leveled out a bit as we headed into a residential neighborhood.
(5) 10:07  More hill, and my slowest mile. I feel discouraged. I say a bad word. Repeatedly. I begin to question whether I had made the right choice to push up that earlier hill.  I had harbored a “best” goal of going sub-2, but this is way too early to feel this tired. I decide to just do my best and stop looking at the watch.
(6) 8:51 Things felt better here, and I rallied.  We were out of the neighborhood diversion and there was a bit of downhill.  Here we ran on a bike path along the side the freeway. If it weren’t for the lovely fog, I would have really hated this.  The path here was mostly flat with some undulations. 
(7) 8:48  I started to pass slower people, always finding a little hidden energy whenever I’m boxed into a group of runners.  About this time, I started sensing a pain on the outside of my foot, at the base of the big toe. It feels like... a blister. But I don’t get blisters.  I begin sending strongly-worded memos to my foot, hoping it will remember company policy and stop hurting.
(8) 8:45  I definitely have a blister.  I say another bad word. Also, I am getting hotter, so I start pouring water on my head at each aid station, which feels wonderful. I notice my fingers have swollen up and my face is scratchy with salt, but I don’t have any nausea yet. Fog has become more of a low cloud.
(9) 9:07  We ran a diversion through Cheney Stadium, our only bit of running on dirt (inside the stadium).  The stadium was mostly empty and music was playing for us. That was nice, but something about it reminded me of the empty hotel in The Shining, and I was glad to get out of there.  
(10) 8:38  At this point I really wanted to stop and get something on my blister. I also wanted to use the Honey Bucket, but we were so close and I still felt I was running well.  A bit of a self-pep-talk convinced me that I would be fine; moreover, I’d be happier later if I just toughed it out.
(11) 9:16 There goes the cloud cover. The wretched sun came out and the path went steeply uphill again.  Good thing I had finished the should-I-stop debate from mile 10.  A few Marathon Maniacs passed me here (this race was a reunion race for them).  Dead bird in the middle of the bike path. The uphill was mercifully short.  
(12) 8:22  We got off the bike path here and ran through a very ugly industrial area. The sun beat down and the new black asphalt felt like an oven. There was also a wicked-steep downhill here that I was glad to put behind me.  Early in this mile, one of the M. Maniacs caught up with me a chatted a bit; I was wearing my Big Sur shirt and he had run it twice. A casual conversation turned into a jolt of energy when he said, “yeah, we’ll break 2 for sure.”  We will?  I had stopped looking at the Garmin and had been running by feel for at least 3 miles. “Oh yeah. You could jog it in and still make it.”  Words cannot express what that did for me.  I picked up the pace just as the terrain started to slope downward. There will be no “jogging it in.”
(13) 8:27    My blister hurt and my legs felt a bit weak, but I had plenty left in the fuel department.  Except for a bit of rough road and a short downhill section that was so steep I had to actually slow down, this was a very happy mile.

(Final .1 kick) 7:58  There it is.  A “one” on the clock...  So happy. So very happy.

Award was a commemorative drinking glass.  Found AuntieEm and shared congratulations. Good band playing.  Blister attended to by nice med-man.  Happy ending!

Regarding my Victoria Marathon in October ...  Don't say it!  You can think it, but don't say it.  Really, please don't.  I just want to know what anyone's opinions are about the most important kind(s) of workout(s) I need to be doing next.  During the last half of this race, I was thinking what I always think during a half-m: it's a good thing I don't have to do this for 26 miles.  So a 9:00 pace is going to have to feel easier than it did today, or at least not horrid.  Four hours is just too long to "tough out" a too-fast effort.  So tempo runs & MP runs? More V02?  All of it?  I'm inclined to focus on tempo and MP runs, but maybe I should just keep everything in the mix, ala Hudson.  Mark your ballot - but don't say it.