They all can't be "easy" runs.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 5:45 am start. It rained buckets last night, so the frogs were really singing this morning. The street lights were out on Laurel Road, so there were some dark areas. At least the moon was bright.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 5:30 am start. Legs were kind of indifferent to running this morning. Not fighting me, but not exactly helping me either. Anyhow, i'm cruising along and i see the most bizarre cloud formation ever. It was an amazing back lit cloud shaped like the letter M. It stood out from everything else like it was glowing. I ain't that deep of a guy. But i start thinking, what does this mean, what is the significance of the letter M, etc.

then i got home and found out NASA launched a rocket this morning.

6:15 pm. At track. I was scheduled to do hills again, but i wanted to do something measureable. 2 up plus strides. 8 x 400 with 2 minutes rest. 1:19, 1:23, 1:27, 1:25, 1:27, 1:27, 1:26, 1:27. 1 down.

Sore heel. I'm taking a couple of days off. This is different than the Achilles nonsense i had back in December. This pain is more at the base of my right heel. I don't think this is a direct result of running the track, although I knew it was enough of a problem to cut my cool down run short. I hope to do a short run tomorrow to test things out again. Man, once again, the timing is okay, as long as this goes away quickly. Every race, two months out, i have to catch the injury bug. Dadgummit!

3.5 miles. Hood Route. Just testing the heel. The first mile was rough, but after that, I got used to things. If I am not in a crazy amount of pain later, I'll try to run longer tomorrow.

7.5 miles. Hood Route. 7 am start. In the rain. Once again, the heel pain was rough at the start. Although today, it only hung around for @ 3/4 mile. Then, it turned into an uncomfortable but tolerable state of annoyance.

Then, since my brother is in town this weekend, we went to the beach, in between storms. The kids did a little skimming and a lot of boogie / body boarding today. The gulf water is still brown-ish from all of the rain, but we had lots of nice waves to ride. My buddy put his 4 year old daughter on a board and had her ride in her first wave. She was totally hooked! Fun day.

5.5 miles. Hood route. 6 am start. The heel is doing much better. But I am walking a line here. Normally, i would double up Wednesdays. I am a bit concerned that might be too much. On the other hand, it is 57 days to race day.

7.5 miles. Hood Route. 6 am start.

80 deg., 94% hum., 78 d.p. = Bonus Gravity.

3.5 miles. Hood Route. 6:15 pm start. During Football practice.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 5:45 am start. Sweaty sweaty.

16.25 miles. Hood route to legacy trail to circus bridge and back. Slow and sweaty. 5:30 am start. The heel still hurts a bit, but we run when we hurt, we don't run injured. Big difference!

7.5 miles. Hood Route, 6:30 am start. surprisingly snappy.I just realized that last month's 249 miles is my biggest month, ever. so there's something.

3.5 miles. Hood Route. 6 am start. It felt cooler this morning, but the weatherman says it was not. I was kind of dazed out there, not really feeling it today.  

5.5 miles. Hood Route, 6:15 pm start. During Football practice. Couple of degrees drop in temps made a big difference tonight. Not that I timed it or anything, it just felt easy. And quicker. The cold front stalled up in Tampa, but the word on the street is that it will get here tomorrow, with more rain. Not nearly soon enough!

7.5 miles. Hood Route. 5:45 am start. Heel still annoying, but I decided to time this one.

1:03:52. 8:31 pace. First mile - @ 9:20 and creaky. Last mile - 7:02 and smooth. 74 deg., 91% hum.,, 71 d.p.

6 am. 2 miles. Run cut short for emergency bathroom stop. P.s. I made it!

6pm. At track. 2 up. 800 in 2:55, 400 easy, 800 in 3:00, 400 easy, 800 in 3:00, 400 easy, 800 in 2:59, 400 easy. 2 down. Drizzly for the whole workout. Where is this cold front?

5.5 miles. Hood route. 6 pm. Start. In the rain. During football practice. I had way too much lunch today. Still keeping it vurpy, yo!

5.5 miles. Hood route. 6 am start. Warm with misty rain.

16.25 miles. Hood route. 5:40 am start. The humidity / dew point just before sunrise was humbling. By the time the sun came up, and cooked away a little bit of moisture, I had been running for an hour at 9 minute pace. I couldn't get the body to go any faster. I was too used to the turnover. So i ran the whole thing at 9 minute pace.

10.2 miles. Hood route to legacy to colonia and back. 6 am start. Slow and sweaty. This week is going to be different. Away game next weekwend. 2 nights at the YMCA

7.5 miles. Hood route. 5:45 am start. Rested the heel yesterday. Still annoying. Had 3 chili slaw onion dogs last night at 11:30. Not smart.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 5:45 am start. Cooler, but still sweaty. This week got away from me pretty quick. Pressure's on now.

7.5 miles. Hood Route. 6 pm start. Slow and steady. Pretty surprising considering:

We left the house this morning at 6 for away games in Naples. That's over an hour and a half away. Naples plays their games on artificial turf. On dark green artificial turf, with some black highlights. In Florida. The reflecting heat of artificial turf is amazing. Johnny's game started just after 10. They didn't have enough volunteers for the chain gang, so I did it. 3 kids on Johnny's team threw up during the game from the heat. They also couldn't get enough guys to do the chains in Tommy's game, so I did it again. It's the home team's responsibility, and it's kind of annoying, but whatever. I've got the best seat in the house. On the other hand, I was baking in the sun on the sidelines from 10 am - 1:30 pm. I have an outrageous farmer's tan from today.

On the way home we stopped at Ford's Garage Diner for lunch. I saw a jiffy burger on the menu, and had to try it. It is a half pound bacon chesseburger topped with peanut butter. If you ever get one of these, do not lift up the bun to look at the peanut butter! Hot peanut butter is not attractive. Just dive right in and eat it. It tastes better than you would expect.

2 hours later, just after halftime of the Gator game, I saw enough to know the Gators were finally going to lose to UT. They didn't have it. So I went for this run. The wife and kids were mad because I was running during the game, but it was a lost cause. I got back home to watch the Gators steal the game in the last 90 seconds.

It was 86 degrees, 77% humidity, and 75 dew point. My summer goes from St. Patrick's Day to Halloween.

All things considered, a pretty good run. I've got to get back on track next week, though. No more messing around.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 7 pm start.

5.5 miles. Hood route. 5:45 am start. Watched most of the lunar eclipse last night, but we got cloud cover for the coolest part.

7.5 miles. Hood route. 5:40 am start. In the rain. Mildew sidewalks are slippery. Thermoplastic roadway striping is even worse. I spent about a fourth of this run with my feet spinning beneath me like i was a scooby doo character that had just seen a g-g-ghost! Tough running this morning, but i'm glad I went.

6:30 pm. Football practice was cancelled, so i took the boys to the track. 1.5 up. Then, I had the boys line up on opposite ends of the track. The idea was they would run a 400 relay to pace me. So johnny did 200 in 45, then tommy did 200 in 45, giving me a 400 in 1:30. Then I did an easy lap, then we did it again, with tommy first. 1:30. Then easy lap. I should have kept going. This went way better than I expected.

I cut the track stuff short on Tuesday because I could feel an illness coming on. Wednesday was spent on the couch, with a fever.