Every Run is a Great Run!

AM: Ran 14 nice relaxed miles, did a slightly modified version of the Krishna Temple loop with a stop in the middle at the ball fields for a drink. Don't remember a lot since I guess I was doing the sleep-running thing most of the time. Legs feeling pretty good after the Saturday 5K (thanks Kim for the awesome Father's Day massage last night!!!). Ave pace 8:26.

With WBR this weekend the plan is for mostly easy miles the rest of the week. I've gradually worked up my long run the last few weeks to where I'm used to getting a 20-mile day in at least every other week so today with a 2nd run at noon it will probably be a 20-mile day unless my body says to do otherwise. Seems like when my mileage gets much above 70 mpw my body starts to rebel so I think I'll keep most weeks in the 60-70 range for now, with possibly a couple of 70-80 mile weeks at the peak of the marathon training cycle.

Noon: Let the heat training begin! Ran Lakeview 10K loop with Paul and Nate. Also another guy I didn't know whose name I can't remember joined us for the first 2.5 miles. We were all a little tired so didn't want to push too hard, but I was surprised considering the heat that we ran as fast as we did. Ave pace 8:05. 

Recovery day for me. Went down to the track with Kim to give her her first taste of a track workout. Decided to do 8 x 400s at around 3K pace which for Kim is around the 7:30-7:45 min/mi range. We jogged another 400 to rest in between.  But now after seeing how easy it seemed for Kim to run the 400s at this pace I'm wondering if her true 3K pace is a little faster as I think she ran all 8 reps a bit quicker than this. I think next week we'll try doing 10 reps and see how it goes.

No more running for me today. I'll likely do a core workout later today at the gym.

AM: Easy 7 mile solo run mostly around river bottoms. Felt very lethargic today. Kind of strange since all day yesterday and last night before I went to bed I was thinking how good my legs were feeling. Maybe had something to do with the alarm waking me up instead of waking up a few minutes before the alarm as is usually the case. Did a few 10-20 sec striders to try and kick-start the system but to no avail. Oh well...go figure. Ave pace 9:02.

Noon: Ended up running just over a mile and a half before turning around and coming back to end up with 3.1 miles. I did feel better than this morning and what felt like the same effort ended up being around 8:15 pace rather than the 9 min pace this morning. But as I ended up alone on this run and it was hot I just didn't feel like going any further. I hope Dale is correct in his comments. Ave pace 8:15.

I finally broke down and scheduled an appointment with Doc Takasaki check on the lower abdomen pains and see if by chance I have a hernia. The groin stuff seems to be on the mend this week but the gut thing can still be very annoying at times. Nice thing about Dr. Takasaki is that he's a runner so he "get's it" and won't give me any stupid advice like some non-running doctors are prone to do.

Last easy run before WBR. Glad I was feeling better today than yesterday (perhaps the company was better?). After around 1.5 mile warmup I helped pace Kim on a pair of mile splits with the goal pace being in her 10K pace range (currently 8:15-8:30, but I think perhaps closer to 8 min is more accurate). Did a 2 minute jog rest in between. I made her be conservative on the 1st mile which ended up at 8:15 with wind at our back. 2nd mile was into the wind and I didn't hold her back as much. Ran most of that mile around 8:10 pace but then she wanted to kick the last quarter so I told her to go for it and we ended up finishing the mile in 7:52.

I'm envious of Kim's "kick" gear, she seems to have a much easier time than me switching to the sprint gear. She thinks I'm sandbagging because oftentimes I can't keep up when she turns on the jets, but honestly it just takes my legs a good quarter to half mile sometimes to accelerate up to the speed she gets to in a matter of seconds. Oh well I guess  some of us are Porsches and some of us are dump trucks.

Ave pace 9:15.

Good luck to everyone running WBR this weekend! Looks like we're in for another HOT one!

Had some troubles this year at WBR, not such a happy (or fast) camper. Stomach problems, bleeding ulcer, etc. means I didn't have as much fun as usual. Oh well those are the breaks. More details later......headed to the ice bath at the moment.

 More details later......