Getting back to Boston

Weather gave me a break tonight; it's low-70s and drizzly instead of 86 and humid like its been for the past month. So I left on a 10-miler just after 9 p.m. Decided to do 11 laps of the park so it would be easy rto bail out and head home if the weather got too bad. I saw plenty of lightning off in the distance, and it rained the whole time, but it was never too close, so kept going. Managed to do the 10 in sub-9:00 pace, which is not bad for me given my current fitness level (and also suggests how much the heat has been slowing me down). Took just an hour and a half to finish.

Easy 5 with hill sprints at the end. Did 10 seconds X 8 on Silent Grove instead of 8 X 8 on Cimmaron this time. Not sure it made that much difference; maybe slightly steeper on SG, but not much, and there was much more traffic consideration. But it was worth a try. Run went well. Legs felt good after 10 last night. I think I went over 900 miles for the year today. I fully expect to do a lot more than that in the second half of 2010, job permitting, since I hopefully will be training for a December marathon.

Hard progression run tonight. Took last night off due to emotional turmoil; the divorce papers arrived in yesterday's mail. Talked to attorney and to Pam today and feel a little better, plus there's light at the end of the tunnel occupationally. They called and asked if I wanted to start Aug. 1, thinking I might be wanting to wait. I said "can't we start a little quicker than that," and she said she thought we could but would check.

Anyway, got out running at a moderate pace, like 9:20-isj, then put the hammer down the last mile and a half, playing one of my silly games -- trying to run a mile and a half in less than 14 minutes so as to finish under an hour. Turned out I ran a mile and a half in 11 and change and finish 6.41 in 57:59. So I won that silly little game.

Ran 133 this month, slightly more than May, less than April. If I'm gonna do 20 weeks for Sacramento, that would start July 18, but I hope I'm starting something else then -- a job. But we'll see how the job and the weather go, and adjust the start of training accordingly. Going to Bryant tomorrow; hope to get in a track workout there to replace the one I skipped last night, plus I'm planning to meet the Crackheads Saturday morning at the Capitol. No Firecracker 5K for me this year.

Drove over to Bryant High this morning to run at the track. It was open, but I found a construction crew putting down the foundation for what I assume to be a new artificial turf football field. Which would not have been too much of an issue, except that they had built a dirt ramp over the track at one corner for dump trucks to drive across, and the dirt was at least a foot thick. Not exactly conducive to running intervals. Plus my glutes were still really sore; I can only assume it was from the drive down, since I didn't run at all yesterday and I had no discomfort in that area after Wednesday's run.

Anyway, between the glutes and the obstruction on the track, decided 400s were not gonna work. So I decided to do a moderate run of about three miles then do some strides and drills at the end. That plan worked pretty well; did 8 strides, two side-shuffles, two butt kicks and two high-knee drills. All of that worked out to 3.6 miles, which was 14 laps in lane 5 due to construction obstruction. Glutes felt better after I finished than when I started, and I got back in time for the soccer game at 9.

Planned to go run with the Crackheads this morning, but couldn't find them. Finally gave up and ran at River Trail, except that the legs were not cooperating at all. Slogged through a slow, painful 8 with lots of walking. Weather was fine, about 70, but just no snap in the legs.