Getting back to Boston

Out for a slow one after work (and a Mexican dinner). Two laps around the mall with a loop down by St E's and Cross Park in between. I thought the RunKeeper was overreading the mileage, but turns out it may have been just about right according to mapmyrun. Total of 8.89 at 9:21 pace. Didn't feel like I was going that fast. Managed to get almost 46 miles into a work week along with 84 hours. You have to be either really dedicated or really insane to train for a marathon and work this job -- unless you skip training every other week.

Easy four laps around the tennis courts tonight. Started getting into daydream mode, thinking about what it will be like to run past Fenway Park and the Citgo sign, down Commonwealth Avenue, turn onto Hereford and then on to Boylston to the finish. As usual when I do that, I start running faster. I'll be interested to see if the real thing provokes the same response.

Planning 18 tomorrow. After I got back from Ben Geren, I sat down to map a route I thought would be pretty close. Turned out it was 18.2 without any tweaks at all. Only thing I'd have to change is turning around just short of Wells Lake Road.

Our dose of early spring has gone away. It was in the 40s and falling this afternoon, and it's supposed to be below freezing tonight. That's OK. I'd rather it stay cold, as long as it's dry. That'll make tomorrow's 18 a little easier too.

Time to start doing big runs. Today qualifies: 18.2, nearly 300 vertical feet from low point to high point. Ran 9:15 average pace. Last five miles were brutal; trying to cramp, just hurt like heck. It wasn't all that warm, 50ish, but sunny and windy, so that dehydrated me more. Took two gels, drank at least 30 oz. of water. Not enough. And for some reason the tip of my right index finger is now numb (???) But I got through it. First 18 miler since April, I think, although I'd have to look. It was that run where I finished in the sleet in Springdale, whenever that was.

I tried to push miles 5-8 at something approximating MP, but without the Garmin, not really sure what that is. I'll call it three at MP, though.

Up in Fayetteville today to take Tyler to the basketball game. Got up here early and got in 8 on the trail while he was still in class, Still pretty stiff from yesterday for the first couple of miles, but loosened up OK. Pace for the outward part was 9:50, probably 9:30 on the return run. Warmer than I would like for late February, but carried water and got through it OK. Showered and changed at T's place, so now we go do a late lunch and go to the game. Then I'll go back to FS tonight. I'm tethered to those cats, but oh well. They keep me relatively sane.

Hudson had me down for ladders today. I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen as soon as I got up this morning, and it didn't get any better as the day went on. Finally ventured over to SHS at 6:30, and for a while I wasn't even sure a decent recovery run was going to happen. Really took me five miles to get loose. But once I got loose, and Big Dog started playing some great tunes, I put the hammer down. I'm guessing the last mile and a half or so were about at MP. It felt like I was flying those last few laps. Still may or may not get any ladders done this week, but I intend to get the miles in anyway. Once I loosened, only real problem was forgetting the headband. Rained today, temp about 60, and it's humid. Real humid. Heat wasn't an issue, but vision was.

Well, I did a full set of ladders. Three, to be exact. Plan was for 3 x 1600 at HMP, 3 X 1000 at 10K, and 3 x 800 and 3 x 400 at something faster than that.

Let's see how I pulled this off. Had to take a notebook out there and write this down, because no way was I going to remember the splits without the Garmin to do it for me.

1600s -- 7:42, 7:23, 7:43. Don't know what happened on that second 1600. First one I was still warming up, last one was the last rep I ran (reversed the order on the last set). Ideal would have been roughly 7:30.

1000s -- 4:32, 4:35, 4:40. That's probably about right.

800s -- 3:37, 3:35, 3:42. Around 3:35 would have been ideal.

400 -- 1:40, 1:41, 1:39. If I strung 12.5 of those together, I'd get my 5K PR by about 7 seconds, so that's where I wanted it.

Took me two full hours. Don't think I've ever done two full hours of track work without a break, even when I was on the track team. Jogged the warmup, went into the reps, kept moving between reps except for two very brief stretch breaks (and to write down my times).

I don't want to look at the calendar and see if I'm supposed to do this again. I hope not. But I got this one done.

Very stiff and sore after the ladders last night, plus driving to Fayetteville today and sitting through a baseball game and dinner with Pam (nothing awkward there, no sir). Got out tonight at 9 p.m. for a few slow miles; took most of the run to get my average down below 10:00 (and get the stiffness out of the hips and hammies). Got it done, though. Pretty sure I won't be doing a tempo run tomorrow, though. Just get in 9 slow to get to a 70 mile week, probably, then think about a tempo run Monday or Tuesday. Or just bag that run and do whatever's on the schedule for next week, which will probably be just as difficult.