Getting back to Boston

Recovery run during the Super Bowl, in two sections. Took my son over for his first visit to the athletic club; he rode the bike for 30 minutes, while I ran the first 4 miles, and then went downstairs for some ab work. I went down to supervise, then went back to the dreadmill to finish the final 3 miles. Easy run, nothing special, legs felt pretty good after yesterday's hillclimbing.

Had to gut one out on this Groundhog Day -- literally. Waited two hours after eating to run; it wasn't enough. Stomach cramps hit after 4 miles. Thought about quitting right away, then figured out, one, it wasn't getting any worse (although not better either) and two, I could push through it as long as it didn't progress to cricket-feeding time. Since the evening's buffet was staying put, I kept going, and even threw in another mile at the end. Total nine miles, with 8 X 100 strides at the end. Total time 79:37. All in all, a darn good run when circumstances were going against me.

Got off work late, wife got off later (in fact, she's not home YET, three hours after I got home). So I put dinner in the oven for the teenager, told him to watch it and turn oven off at the appropriate time, and went to run. And run. And run. A half-marathon on the dreadmill, in fact. Finished in an hour-54, a clocking that would have thrilled me a year ago. Tonight, it was just a good progression-type training run, with the last half-mile at GMP mainly because I still could and because I wanted to FINISH AND GET OFF THAT BELT.

Then I did what I believe is the coldest icebath I've ever had. Falling overboard on "Deadliest Catch" couldn't be much colder, and that's the Bering Sea in January. But that should certainly flush all the lactate out of my legs, along with the rest of the blood that was in there.

Speaking of blood, I took off my left shoe after the run to find blood on the sock, and dried blood on a couple of toes. But I really cannot figure out where the blood came from. There is no visible wound. I did notice a little bit of irritation in that area during the run, but nothing unusual, and it really didn't last that long.

So then I capped off the night by registering for Newport. I'm committed now (or maybe should be committed). Just have to come up with the money for the trip now. A good stimulus payment in the next four months would help :)

Change of plans in mid-run tonight. Was scheduled for 8 mile recovery on the dreadmill, but legs felt good after last night's dread-half, so I decided to flip days and run Thursday's planned 11-mile GA. Threw in some fartlek, and my usual progression, then bumped it to GMP for the last mile and 6:40 pace for the final 400. Handled that pretty well, I thought.

 Nice to have any remaining uncertainty out of the way. it's Newport now. So I can focus on that, and just lock in for the next 16 weeks on scorching the shores of Yaquina Bay, or whatever it's called. I really like how my training is going so far; better than I had hoped after being sick so recently. Maybe my legs needed to rest at that point.Build tthe base, learn to lay down 7:30-ish miles, and go to Oregon from Boston in May confident that I'll be back in Boston 10.5 months later. That's the plan, anyway; let's see if I can pull it off.

Legs felt like I'd run 33 miles in the past three days when I started tonight's recovery run. They just did not want to get loose. Finally, around the four-mile mark (which seems to be my magic distance), they got going. It was definitely a recovery run (76:17 for eight miles, followed by an ice bath).

Saturday's Crackhead distance is 18 miles. That will give me 66 for the week -- and there's still 16 weeks to Newport. Somebody asked on RWOL how many miles we thought we'd run this year, and I guessed maybe 2400. I'm starting to think that will be low -- maybe way low, barring injury or major burnout. But we'll see. I should put in about 1200 before June 1, and go from there. 

Didn't expect too much when I started this morning's run with the Crackheads -- and the Crackheads were out in force; I estimate maybe 300 people out there. My legs felt really heavy. Which probably worked out in my favor, since there was no chance of going out too fast. Just set out at what felt like a really slow, plodding pace -- which turned out to be about 9:40 to 9:45 (I remember when a 9:40 run felt like a sprint). And I just kept plodding, down the river trail, through Burns Park, across the freeway on the Funland loop, back through the soccer fields, and down the trail to the skate park.

After the turnaround at the skate park, I started a game. It was called Pass As Many People As You Can. I don't know if the people I was passing were running 18, 10, 5, or just happened to be out there at the same time as us Crackheads. Didn't matter. I just kept picking them off. I probably passed 30 or 40 people, got passed by zero. Got back to the surgical hospital in 2:50 for exactly 18 miles. Definitely the best run I've ever had on that particular run, where I have had some problems in the past. I would not have been happy if this was a race, but for a training run 16 weeks out, it went really well.