For Whom the Dogs Bark

75F, 83%, S 10-18, cloudy but won't rain.  The drought continues, but good running weather.  The goal this morning was to test out my right groin which was in pretty bad shape on Saturday after the race.  Went 9.02 miles all at LHR, 1:31:29, average pace 10:08 per mile.  I was a little surprised that my pace was so slow despite running low miles on Saturday, but probably a combination of heat and injury.  The groin was generally OK, definitely sore and not healed but better than Saturday.  I was ready to stop whenever I got the right neural signals, but it never happened.  The muscle gradually loosened up, to the point that by mile 5 it was almost unnoticeable so long as I stayed in the same rhythm.  Might try a little bit of speed tomorrow.  I think I will try 1K intervals at a little slower than GMP and see how that works.

I've been thinking all weekend about the 53-year old who ran a 17:45 5K, more than 3 minutes faster than me.  So far, every local race in the 5K to 10K range has the best runners in my age group coming in around 6:10 to 6:30 per mile.  Sometimes none of them show up and I win the age group.  Other times they all do and I come in 10th.  But with my 6:41 per mile on Saturday I was getting close to being competitive no matter who shows up.  But every time I think I must be approaching my limit I see another shining example in gray hair and it's back to the drawing board.  This guy ran 5:42 per mile and he was at least 185 pounds, a big guy, his time is definitely a standard I should be shooting for.  My genetics are good but not great and sooner or later they will catch up with me, but I am enjoying the ride while it lasts, so glad I decided to do this.  Plus, just found out I am in SGM with two sisters, two brothers and a brother in law!  What a day.

75F, 83%, SE 12-17 mph, cloudy and blustery but no rain.  Pretty good running weather.  Somewhat apprehensively I decided to do 1K intervals at GMP.  Slept in, spent a little extra time switching my watch over to metric and was out the door at 6.  Ran 10K at LHR, average pace 6:01 per km (9:40 per mile), was happy about that pace in the heat.  Then 1 km transition into the first interval and 1km active recovery between intervals.  Really enjoyed my faster interval times; after careful experimentation I have concluded that Ks are faster than Ms and I think we should switch.  Ran the GMP intervals at 4:44 (7:36)(154); 4:39 (7:29)(158); 4:40 (7:30)(160); 4:35 (7:25)(166); and 4:36 (7:28)(167).  Had trouble stretching out my stride on the first one or two intervals but then things loosened up somewhat and was relatively comfortable for the rest of the run.  But now that I have cooled off I am hurting some (mostly the achilles, surprisingly) and may have to stay slow for most of the week.  Plus I need more hill work on the TM, hard to know how to allocate precious resources with only this week and two more before my taper.  Overall 19.43 km (12.07 miles) at 8:57 per mile.

76F, 78%, SSE 13 gusting to 21, cloudy and rainy without the rain part.  Seemed like pretty good running weather though.  Ran Ks again.  16.10 km (10.00 miles) in 1:37:00, LHR, average pace 6:01/km, which is 9:42 per mile, OK for these conditions.  No fast miles today, everything was too iffy.  As a result I felt better during the day and managed to finally get on the treadmill tonight for some hill work, 4 miles at 5.5, 6.0, 6.0 and 6.5 mph; up, down, up, down.  Kind of a complicated workout.

75F, 93%, E 7 mph, very muggy this morning.  LHR miles were 9:48 per mile, slower than yesterday.  Had to hurry and get done, but didn't mind because I'm a little leery about piling on too many miles right now anyway.  Ran about 5.9 LHR, then sped up into 2 x 1K, paces were 7:38 and 7:39, groin got tight and had to pull back and restart the second one, but got through it feeling pretty good.  So total of 8.22 this morning in 1:17:12, average pace 9:23 per mile, then did two TM miles, hill work, tonight.  I'm a little worried about finishing my training program for UVM on time, should be running harder this week and next but trying to pay attention to what my legs are telling me, right now they are speaking in a foreign language.  We got rain today, very happy about that, and the air is cooler outside tonight.

59F, 100%, calm and foggy.  It wasn't really that foggy out there, but that's what the weather report said.  Very nice running weather, obviously.  Ran 9.5K warmup, average pace 9:31 per mile, then 3 x 1K at GMP, 7:29 (156), 7:20 (161) and 7:17 (161), (paces converted to miles), 1K cooldown in between.  Groin has settled down a lot, but still felt too sore to do TM tonight.

59F (70F at end), 50%, NNW 11-18 mph.  Another picture perfect running morning, looks like we will have a couple more of these next week before normal temperatures return.  Went to bed at 9 and set the alarm for 5 but woke up at 4:30, seems I don't need 8 hours any more.  I drove down to the Y and met Wade and the group.  I told Wade I needed to go 8:30 to 9:00 for the 12 miles they were doing, and the whole group responded.  Everybody was feeling good in the dry cool air and running fast.  This is a group that usually does 9:30 pace, today everybody ran together and as a group they averaged 8:40.  I had to peel off for a restroom break, caught up part of the distance but not all.  I am putting my average at 8:35 for the first 12.3.  Wade was keeping time because I was conserving battery life on my Garmin.  They all went to breakfast and I headed back out for the fast miles.  I warmed up for about a half mile then took off.  The course out was into the wind and slightly uphill, so was happy to hit everything in the 7:30s, nothing faster than 7:33 though.  Coming back I was around 7:25 the whole way, 7:15 (182) on the last mile, average 7:31 for the 8.  In some ways it was easier, but without the wind in my face it was hot and it was close to 9:00 by this time anyway.  I had my EFS flask with me to practice taking on calories and electrolytes.  Gave me slight nausea, especially coming back in the heat.  I am used to running hungry and it is more comfortable that way, but I need a little bit in order to make it through the marathon distance, so I have to practice it.  I stopped as soon as I hit 8, the fast miles are not a rounding error.  I knew it was right on the button because my 1-hour clock went off just before I stopped.

This was a big run for me, never seem to hit it but I got it today.  Those last two miles I am putting in the bank, I will need to make a withdrawal at UVM.  Hopefully the teller lines at the Bank of the Mountain Running Gods are not too long that morning.  In two weeks if all goes well I hope to do this run again as a 10/10 instead of 12/8 before the UVM taper, and maybe try to get a little more speed on the last two.  My legs are trashed but my groin gave me no problems today, during the run or afterward, and my achilles is no worse than usual.  So all is well.