Getting back to Boston

Basically 10 miles hard, 6 miles easy this morning. Fayetteville trails were covered with mud in three or four low-lying areas after last week's heavy rain, and I thought I was going to bust my fanny a couple of times sliding around in the mud. No spills, though. I was able to run about five miles at GMP (about being the key word), then kinda jogged the last six miles on the roads in NE Fayetteville until I got back to the car. I seem to have recovered from the run pretty well; maybe the six-mile jog served as a recovery run. Good run, but... need better runs than this if I'm going to be ready to race in Memphis in 55 days, though.

Progression run tonight. Was supposed to be an easy run, but legs felt good, and I don't know if I have the luxury of enough time to do "just" an easy run. I've missed too much work this cycle. I need to get some speed work in there on just about everything, I think. I may be wrong and I may be taking on too much. Anyway, after a 9:20 first mile, decided to pick up the pace, then pick it up some more, and finally for about the last third of the run tried to do GMP. Went a little past GMP, actually, but IMO that's OK. Tempo runs have their place too, to get me used to going fast so that "only" GMP feels more comfortable.

Funny how circumstances compel you to adapt and adjust. I'd planned to run 10 miles tonight in a tempo-interval format, with two miles at GMP, half pace and 15K pace. But my Garmin came off the charger cradle last night and did not fully charge, and I still need the Garmin to help me keep my pace where it should be (shameful but true). So I decided to do a MLR instead. Then the presence (again) of the roaming black dog in the park prompted me to do long loops in order to minimize my time in his area, which in turn led me to extend the MLR from 10 miles to 12. And for good measure, I ran what I think was a progression pace (again hard to say for sure without the Garmin or a stopwatch, or even knowing for sure when I started). I do know that at 8:37, I sent my wife a text to alert her that I'd decided to run 12 miles and that I was at the halfway mark. I finished the run 54 minutes later, so I'm pretty sure I averaged 9:00 for the last 6 miles. What I ran for the first 6, I have no idea.

So now, assuming the Garmin actually gets charged properly, I'll do that 10-mile tempo interval run on Thursday. Tomorrow, an easy recovery run, after I get back from my first afternoon of nursing home rounds. And if the rest of the week goes well, including Saturday's LR, I'll go ahead and sign up for Memphis.

Another running milestone today. With about 400 meters left in my slow recovery run, the yearly total topped 2000 miles. A little quick math reveals that if I've averaged 9:20 per mile for those 2000, which sounds about right, that's 1.12 million seasons on the road, the trail and the treadmill this year. Or 13 solid days, take your pick. Kinda daunting considering that 27 months ago I weighed 185, had a spare tire and a double chin on the way to triple, and couldn't run around the block. The double chin is gone, although some of the excess skin remains. Ditto for the spare tire around my middle. Ditto for about 35 pounds of me. And now it takes me several trips around the block just to get warmed up properly.

Looks like the work schedule will work out for Memphis, so assuming nothing untoward happens in training in the next week, I'll go ahead and sign up to run.

Kind of a tempo run tonight; I think Hudson calls it threshold intervals or something. Warm up, 2 miles at GMP, brief recovery, 2 miles at HMP, brief recovery, 2 miles at 15K pace, finish slowly. In my case, ended up being a touch over 10 miles. Of course, my pacing being the joke that it is, the closest I got on the two miles at each pace were HMP: 7:39 and 7:32. The 15K pace was 7:31/7:11, for which I'll excuse myself on the grounds that it was dark, getting cold and I was just trying to finish ASAP (cough cough).

Easy 5 this afternoon looping around Hunt Park. Now run 17 straight days after missing most of September, and the legs are doing OK. Do a long run tomorrow, then probably pull the trigger and register for Memphis.

At least once in every training cycle, I have a Saturday where the legs just don't want to run. Today was that day. It got so bad that about the 9 mile mark, I considered calling Pam and telling her to come get me. Instead I kept going. And going. And going. Ended up with 17.58, and a 74-mile week. My first 70-plus mile week since April or May, not sure which. Of course, that's padded a little by the fact I did 16 on Sunday instead of last Saturday and 17 today, but even if I'd done the run on Saturday instead of Sunday, it would have been well over 60 this week.

Started out on Cimmaron, then Overo, west on Backus, south on White Road, west on Elm Springs, south on 40th Street, east on Don Tyson, south on Carley, east on Main Street in Johnson, northeast on Hewitt in Johnson, north on Johnson Road, back west on Don Tyson, north on Carley, east on Sunset, north on West End, then Cheyenne, then Pump Station, then Silent Grove, then a loop around Lake Springdale, then up through Hunt Park, back down Fleming to Silent Grove, and finally home. Whew! It's exhausting just remembering all that. 

Still trying to decide if I want to run Soaring Wings next weekend. Probably not. Just run with the Crackheads instead, although I might change that if I decide I need some speedwork.