Getting back to Boston

Hadn't intended to run quite this late (finished around 10 p.m. local, which I guess would have been 11 p.m. LAST night), but here I am. GA/recovery on the TM, 9 miles, with a 400-meter surge thrown in every fifth lap largely to break up the monotony, then the last two laps were a surge at GMP. The electronic leash went off at the 5-mile mark; patient calling with yet another non-emergency, so that forced me to stop for five minutes and return the call. I don't see an emoticon button on the toolbar, but if there were, I'd be looking for :rolleyes:. 

Since I won't have a Saturday long run this week due to another trip up the Hill with Tyler, I'll bump a few more miles onto the week's shorter runs to semi-compensate, maybe get the week up to 62 or so. Then next week will have a 22 on Sunday and 17 on Saturday, so getting over 70 won't be much problem before the taper begins. Dadgum, are we already that close to tapering? Yikes.

Speaking of which, good news from the marathon people in Memphis. I was worried about being assigned to the wrong corral or wrong wave and not being able to run with the 3:30 pace bunny. No problems, according to the St. Jude people; I'm on my own in finding and lining up in the right corral for the 3:30 pace. 

Discovered tonight that a 10.25 mile run roughly equals one NFL first half. Began the run as the Steelers tried their onside kick to start the game, finished as the teams trudged toward the locker room at halftime. Those two events were 92 minutes apart. I'd planned to go 10, but kept running after the 10-mile mark until the halftime whistle blew (I do weird things like that sometimes).

In between, lots of bad offense, and a progression run to 8:41 pace with six strides thrown in at the end. Had a queasy patch in the middle as tonight's buffet dinner began to disagree with me, but got through that unscathed. Will try to get 60 miles in by Friday and then next week will be in the mid-70s before taper madness begins.

Didn't get to vote Saturday, so have to get up early tomorrow and get over to the polling place when it opens so I can vote on the way to work. Not going to share my politics with you, but I will say I think this is an extremely important election in a lot of ways. My son has already cast his first ballot and was proud to do so. Unlike my mom and dad, our family will not cancel out each other's votes.

Tough time on the VO2 max run tonight. The legs did not want to loosen up, the heater was on in the fitness center, I'm sweating like a cochon, etc. But I forced the legs to keep turning over through four 1200-meter reps at about 5K pace. Overall, the 10 miles took 88 minutes, even with longer jogs in between than probably Pfitz or Jack Daniels intended. But, hey, I did what I needed to do to get through it; if I'd taken shorter rests, I may not finish four full reps.

I'm probably going to be overtrained by the time I get to next Saturday, I suspect. Fortunately, I'll have 21 days to get over that.

Stayed up way too late watching the election results last night and had a very sluggish day as a result. Sluggishness carried over to the run. Can't recall when I took a walk break on a treadmill run, but I did tonight. I've decided I hate standard time. Dark at 5:30 stinks. Virtually no chance of doing an outside run due to the pancake factor (i.e., a car turns me into one). And running inside right now, even with the ceiling fan on full blast, equals mid-July levels of perspiration.

I'd have to go back through my training diary, which would take way more energy and concentration than I can manage right now, but I'm 95% sure without looking that this is the first time I've ever run 10 miles three consecutive days. I'm supposed to do another 10+ tomorrow, but not sure I can manage it.

Slow steady 12 on the TM tonight; just put it on 9:22 pace and ran and ran and ran some more. Then on 9:13 and ran some more. Total of 111 minutes for the 12 miles. Tomorrow's 8 is likely to seem SO easy. Sunday's 22, on the other hand, probably won't.

The kid is lobbying me to go to Fayetteville tomorrow night. I suppose I can run my 8, then change, pack and go. But I haven't quite given in yet. May have to see how I feel after work tomorrow.

Five miles on the TM at 9:00 pace, just to get in some miles before driving to Fayetteville. Then I'll do 3 or 4 in the morning at the hotel before we go to campus. This will be my first 7-day running week in memory, but hopefully doing Fri-Sat easy will help the legs recover before Sunday.

Also ordered tickets to see Spamalot next month. As a confirmed Knight (pronounced kuh-NIG-uht) of the Holy Grail, can't resist.