Getting back to Boston

This started out as a recovery run, but as I went along, I got faster and faster. Before I knew it, I was in the low-8:00 range and ended up averaging almost exactly 9:00 for the six miles. Legs obviously felt pretty good after 13 yesterday.

I've been reading Tim Noakes' book and his theory of a reprogrammable central governor that is the primary limitation on our performance in distance races makes sense. I think that's what I did for Memphis -- reset the popoff valve to tolerate low-8:00 pace. Now I just have to reset it again to, say, 7:35 and I'm golden.

Had a change in plan for the next race. No, it will probably still be Newport, but the family won't be going with me. Instead, the family wants to go to New England, or Canada, or both in the early summer. So it appears that I'll go solo to Oregon and then the family will head northeast, across the border if we can get the passports in time.

Kind of a fortuitous circumstance tonight. Had planned to do 8 on the TM, but I get to the fitness room and the TM is taken. I didn't figure the not-so-fit guy on there was going to stay on it very long, but I didn't want to go home and come back later. Decided to get on the recumbent bike and do some crosstraining, then run when the guy left. So I got 18 good minutes on the bike, which didn't feel like much until I got off and the quads were burning, then did 6 recovery miles on the TM. Almost like doing doubles in terms of targeting the quads and then working everything else.

Pfitz arrived today. Right now, I'm leaning toward tweaking the 18/85 down a bit rather than tweaking 18/70 up, but I'll look at it further. Also got some good news in that I may not have to do clinic Saturday morning, so I may be able to do a regular LR instead of something abbreviated so I can get to work. 

One of those runs I didn't think would go well when it started, but got better as it went along. Eight miles GA at sub-9 pace with 8 strides at the end. As I warmed up, the legs started feeling better. Didn't pick up the pace, but the pace got easier. Last two miles were fairly easy, then I did have to push some to maintain the 6:40 pace on the strides. Total time less than 69 minutes for the full 8.

Chalk last night up as DNFLR -- Did Not Feel Like Running. Or remaining awake, for that matter. Got about three hours' sleep, dragged through work (which ran late), didn't get home until 7:30, wouldn't have finished running until after 9. Nope. Wasn't going there. So went to bed by 10 and slept -- hard.

Tonight, felt better. It's in the low 20 and falling right now, so back to the old friend the TM for a good hard 9-miler. Ran the first seven at MP + 10%, then put the hammer down for MP, or maybe even a little faster, for the last two. Wound up with a sub-8:30 average. I think this kind of run will reset the old central governor, if Tim Noakes is right, and get me ready for sub-8 and thus BQ.

Will do a light jog tomorrow night to sorta make up for DNFLR, then do 12 or so on the river Saturday morning, when hopefully it might even get above 25 degrees.

This morning was kind of a test. I decided to go out and push the pace more than I usually do on a Saturday and see how long I could hold it. The answer, it seems, was 10 miles.

Temp was about 30 this morning with a bit of wind, Since I'm once again battling sniffles and coughing, I bundled up more than usual -- tights under track pants, a long-sleeved tech shirt under a wind shirt, a fleece headband, my UA skullcap and gloves. And off I went. Didn't look at the watch for probably an hour, just ran.

The official Crackhead distance today was 10. I started out planning to do 12, but when I got to the turnaround, I kept going all the way to Big Dam Bridge, which equals 14 miles. Started wishing I hadn't done that at about 10 miles when I ran out of gas. But the time for 10 miles was 1:27, which is as fast as I've ever run for that distance any time that I didn't pay for a bib, a chip and a T-shirt. Then I kinda hit an early wall. Probably due to the upper respiratory stuff, which fortunately didn't bother me this morning until after I finished. And I was able to run the last mile in sub-8 anyway.

So now one more week until the Newport training plan begins. I'm gonna try to do a recovery double tomorrow to get used to that.