AM: Nice morning run but a bit nippy for June. Of course the SF canyon winds were doing their thing as well. Went around 6 miles with Kim and then 1 solo mile after Kim met up with her new running buddy to finish off her run. We did what will be the last of the hill repeat workouts. Since this week will be a slightly reduced mileage week (55-65 miles for me) and since we have a race on Saturday we didn't do as many hill reps as last week (5 for me, 4 for Kim). These were timed reps, 2 minutes up the hill, 3 minute rests coming back down. I was pleased I got quite a bit further up the hill than last week, of course it helped that I was only doing 5 reps instead of 8 and wasn't still recovering from a weekend of no sleep. As usual Kim was looking strong coming up the hill not far behind me. Ave overall pace 9:33.

PM: Ran the Lakeview 10K loop with Paul. Nice sunny day, almost on the verge of being too warm but I'm not going to whine about the heat quite yet. Ignored the garmins, had some good chit-chat and just ran by feel keeping it easy and comfortable. Ave pace 8:12.

AM: A bit of a sleep-running morning today with Kim. Couldn't seem to completely wake up and get going. Ran the 6+ mile river bottom loop. Beautiful morning today even with the wind. Kim was feeling some pain in her right hip adductor muscle so we went a bit slower than normal. Pain is probably due to the long run on Saturday followed by sort-of-long-run yesterday with hill repeats. My bad--perhaps Coach Tom needs to mellow out a bit. Ave pace around 10 min/mi.

Late AM: Ran 4 miles out toward Lakeview, paid no attention to pace, ended up being around 8:30 pace.

Also did some core work at the gym.

AM: Solo 8 mile run. Felt OK but as always it's a little hard to get the legs moving in the early morning. Did some dynamic stretching exercises before going out that helped with the warmup factor. A bit nippy again today, but no wind, no rain, so no complaints. Ave pace 7:53

PM: Ran the Lakeview 10K loop with Paul and Darin. Nice run, at first it looked like the weather might be nasty but it turned out to be a pretty nice day, albeit a bit windy. I felt better than I expected to after the morning 8 miler. Ave pace 8:12.

AM: Sleepy head 5.1 mile run with Kim around the neighborhood.....mile road, BSRools road, windmill road, etc. Another chilly June morning, felt more like April, but not too bad after a warmup mile or 2. Kept the pace on the easy side and no hills, wanting to make sure Kim's thigh pain stays on the mend. Ave pace around 10 min/mi.

Late AM: Ran just over 3 miles easy at work. Felt lethargic. Did a couple of striders in the middle to try and wake my legs up but it didn't help much. Also did some core work afterward at the gym. Ave pace 8:20.

Ran 6 miles nice and easy on this brisk and windy morning. Just over 2 miles with Kim then a few more solo. Ave pace 9:20.

I don't have any particular goals for the 5K tomorrow. I mainly would just like to see Kim's name get drawn for the SGM entry. I haven't tapered much if at all this week so I'm just treating this as a tempo run. Hoping my body will let me run around 6 min pace or slightly under for at least the 1st 2 miles, but I'll just play it by ear and take what my body is willing to give me.

My efforts in getting completely over the lower abdominal and groin strain/pain have been so-so. I feel great some days and other days the pain is annoying but bearable. It doesn't seem to get any better or worse regardless of how slow or fast I run. In fact oftentimes I feel better after faster workouts than slower ones. I know, I know...probably time to go see the Doc/PT and see what he says. After WBR if I still feel the same or worse that is what I plan on doing.

YAHOO!!! KIM GOT HER GOLDEN TICKET TO SGM!!! CONGRATS KIM!!!

Now as far as the race...... I would say very so-so for me. But certainly better than the Ephraim 5K a few weeks ago. I'll give myself a C+. On paper I should be in the 18's but lately I've had trouble getting below 19. Thing is at the end of the race I really felt like I'd given a hard effort and felt about as spent as I ever have for a 5K. Kind of a bummer that my 5K and 10K pace is so similar. I guess it was a little warm and most runners I talked to who had run it before were off on times. Kim says I'm being too hard on myself with the C+ grade but I'm sticking to it! Heck I've run an 18:36 5K in training in March so I should be able to go sub-19 regularly in a race environment I would think!

So need to figure what the issue is. I think most likely it's just weariness from building up mileage recently (quite a few 70+ mile weeks as of late, plus I didn't really taper for this race), but maybe even more so are these lingering lower abdomen and groin pains that I've had since the back-to-back 1/2 marathon & 10K races in April (Note to SELF: DON'T DO UNPLANNED RACES A WEEK AFTER ANOTHER HARD RACE!!! This may work when you are younger but for a Masters guy I don't think it is WISE!). I didn't feel like the abdomen/groin pains affected me while I was racing but I think maybe they affected the nervous system side of things. Sorry WBR teammates but I think I will be needing to run a bit less aggressive than usual this year.

I DID like leaving the garmin at home and just using a regular stopwatch and doing more of run by feel. Interestingly enough through the first 2 miles I ran almost exactly according to what I had planned on doing with the garmen. Go out just under 6 min pace and try and hold it as long as possible.

So I was 5:55 at mile 1. Perfect, felt about right but I was bummed I lost touch with the large group ahead of me that included Bill Cobler, Suzanna Thomas and basically the crowd that performs around the level I would like to be at. They must have been around 5:45 for this mile I think.

Hit mile 2 marker at 12 minutes (total time). OK a little off where I wanted to be (was hoping for another 5:55) but still averaging 6 min pace so OK.

OK now the dang hills of mile 3. This is where I died. This is where the mental toughness thing is just so hard for me. It didn't help that I found myself in a no-mans-land with no other runners close enough in front of me to provide motivation. I try thinking in my head what Paul told me about "Embracing the Pain" and kept thinking to myself "Embrace the pain....embrace the pain". It helped for a while but I still feel like I kind of gave up on the uphill.

Also tried Sasha's grunting routine during the last 1/2 mile or so. I think this did help me recover a bit after the uphill but I need to toughen up a little sooner. I was thinking I was going to finish without being passed by anyone but DANG another master runner (57 yrs old it turns out) blew past me the last 1/4 mile. I tried to catch him the last tenth and closed the gap but I couldn't overtake take him.

I forgot to notice my mile 3 pace but I figure it must have been around 6:30 to end up with the 19:13 overall.

Tough field today in all age divisions. Would have liked to have been top 3 in 40-44 but I didn't earn it so 5th place seems about right. I was excited Kim got 4th in her AD, I think that is way cool she can do that on just 9 mos. running.

As usual enjoyed spending time with all the blogger folks, we had a pretty decent sized group. Also was proud of my son Jansen for doing pretty good on his 5K with pretty much no training (just over 24 minutes I think).

AND A HUMUNGOUS THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PUT IN KIM'S NAME FOR THE SGM TICKET!!!! JANSEN, KIM'S BROTHER JEREMY, BRENT & SYLVIE, THE 3 PACHEVS (SASHA, BEN & JENNIE) AND ANYONE ELSE WE MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT. THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!!! I HAVE A VERY EUPHORIC HAPPY WIFE AT THE MOMENT (WHICH USUALLY MEANS GOOD THINGS FOR ME AS WELL ;))!!!!!