Speed Limited

Summer ain't over yet. It was right at 90 degrees this afternoon with abundant sunshine. The plan called for 2-3-4-3-2 fartleks, meaning I needed my trusty Garmin sidekick to tell me when to speed and slow down and such. I left the house with my water bottle and realized halfway down the hill that I'd forgotten said Garmin. I walked back, strapped it on my right wrist and started running once I got off the driveway. With the heat I knew I needed to dial back the "speed" part of the run. Accordingly I tried to keep the intervals at a 9-minute/mile pace. Even so I walked a couple of times, once before the last interval and another as I was in the cooldown. I'll be interested to see how it looks on the heart monitor chart right before I started walking. I was nowhere near close to really overheating or anything, but it did seem like the smart thing to do. And limiting my speed worked out okay, too.

More Aimless Wandering

As I've said before, I can't run anywhere around here without running on hills. Once again I had an idea of the route I was going to take this morning but just like Thursday I changed my mind. Ascending one of the Flintlock hills I realized I didn't want to run back up that street because the way back was worse than the way I was headed. I made an executive decision and continued south past Highway 152. Not only was it a good move because of the hills, but also because there was more shade on that route. The day wasn't horribly hot, but the humidity was way high. Any chance to stay out of the sun mitigated the effect of the humidity somewhat. I also took the 9 miles slow and easy and walked up a couple of the bigger hills on the latter half of the run. I probably could have run them but I wasn't trying to kill myself. We'll save that for later on in the training plan.

Hills

I like walking out the door and not knowing where I'm going to run. I have a general idea, of course, but the exact route doesn't have to be set in stone before I hit the outdoors. Today's plan called for hills, and I originally thought I'd run the same route as last week. As I walked down the front steps I changed my mind and decided that route didn't offer enough shade. The temp was 84 and it felt all of that and maybe a little more. There are hills everywhere around here, meaning that whatever direction I went I would meet the plan. I opted for the long drawn-out hill on the way back, and that worked pretty well. 6 miles in all.

I started listening to a marathon podcast that concludes the Roman history series I've been listening to for, well, about a year or so, I think. It probably seems longer tan that to the guy who put it together. It's fascinating stuff. This episode is over five hours long and should keep me entertained for several more runs.

Stupid/Smart/Stupid

That's how today's run pretty much went. It was 94 degrees outside when I left the house and very sunny, but I had things to do tonight and didn't want to run late. By this time in the year I'm fairly acclimated to the temperature and know enough to take it slow. However, today's schedule called for speedwork in the form of hill repeats. Not an easy task to undertake with a heat index over 100. I'm stupid enough to give it a try, though.

The smart part comes in at this point. I was going to run on my regular hill of horror, a section of what the kids call Lungdropper Hill. There's no shade anywhere in the vicinity of that area and I knew better than to try it. I ran part of my regular route down Shoal Creek and then spent some time doing the repeats in the shady area along the sidewalk. I ran six short repeats. Even though I backed off and walked a couple of times on the way back down the hill it was torture.

The stupid part at the end was the fact that I left myself a 'cooldown' of over a mile to get home. I walked up the big hill right before the traffic circle because hey, I'm stupid but not that stupid. In all I ended up going 5.25 miles and getting in my repeats. The air-conditioned house sure felt good when I got home and saw that the temp was still 93 degrees. Looks like the next day of running should be about ten degrees cooler. We can only hope.

You Call It Rain

Today was a day off work for me and I thought about running this morning. The wiser course seemed to mow the lawn before the rain hit, which is what I did. The thunderstorms lasted the rest of the morning. This afternoon I did my weight exercises and was ready to head out even though the temperature was 91 degrees. But The Wife thought she might run with me, and it seemed we would run after a somewhat early dinner. Well, dinner was late and she didn't want to go out, so I ended up running much later than planned. But the one thing that's constant is change, and we runners have to be flexible that way. Even though I ran late I reaped the benefit of the setting sun and cooler weather. Guess I can't complain too much. The 6 miles was a nice, easy run and I listened to a podcast instead of music for a changeup.

The heading for this post comes from the Old 97's song with this title off their new album. I played it for the kids this weekend and it's a very catchy tune. My youngest got it stuck in her head. Which made me play it even more. So it's in her honor that I title this post.

Wave Runner

Today I actually had another runner wave back and acknowledge me! Okay, I don't really feel the exclamation-point type of caring about this, but after my post on Thursday it seems worth mentioning. I still didn't wave at bikers - er, cyclists, though.

I was pleasantly surprised this morning. First of all I intended to get up earlier, but I was up until midnight. I thought my window for cool weather had already passed, but a few minutes before 8 o'clock it was still only 69 degrees when I walked out on the deck. Plus it was slightly overcast, making it feel just fine. I hurried out the door and ran the first half of my 8 miles in very nice running weather. The sun came out and instantly the humidity shot up. I was thinking on my trek back along 96th Street that I'd have to walk up the hill some in order to keep from overheating and being discovered as an overheated corpse by some other harrier. Right then the slight clouds came back and saved me. I ran the whole 8 miles and am starting to feel a little better and stronger. That's 26 miles for the week. Guess I'm committed now.

Waveless

I noticed this on my last couple of runs but today I remembered to include it in a post. My last three runs I've seen several other runners and walkers out, and I'm the type of guy who gives a courtesy wave or a "Good evening" as I pass by. In all I've probably seen over a dozen people on these outings and maybe one person out of the whole lot has returned the courtesy. And one lady who wheezed out a hello in a startled kind of way, like she was surprised that another human being would acknowledge her existence.

I get it that some people don't like to wave or say hello. Sometimes I get in that mood, too. For instance, I don't acknowledge bikers. Sorry, but you're on the road and I'm on the sidewalk. And I think you look funny in your bright spandex and kooky helmet. You probably think I look hilarious in the throes of my six-mile death shuffle. But we're in different universes. Runners inhabit my world. It just seems weird that all of a sudden every runner I see is Mr. or Mrs. Unfriendly. What are the odds? Is it me?

You can tell I'm in training for real now. Otherwise I would have stayed in or run on the treadmill. Instead I headed out in 91 degree heat to run hills. I made the plan for the next 3+ months and I stacked the front end of it with hill runs. I've read that hills are a good method for building up strength and I certainly need that after messing around since the half-marathon in April. I ran up the back of the neighborhood, which I hadn't run in quite awhile. There are a few new houses but otherwise the hills remain. Then I ran down to 96th Street, over to Flintlock, and past the future library. I walked about three minutes up the biggest hill on the way back, but otherwise I hit the hills pretty good. A big storm was moving in from the north and passing us by to the east, which provided some cloud cover. Not a lot, but enough to make the run bearable. And I was smart enough to have my water bottle ready to go, all frozen-like. The 6 miles seemed longer than it was, but that's just because I hadn't run that route in months. Now that I have a plan I'm serious. At least as serious as a person like me can be.

Back to Speeding

Today I decided to do some fartleks to get back into a frame of mind involving speedwork. It was "only" 85 degrees when I got home, but with the sun out and no clouds I decided to wait until after dinner before running. I'm not sure it made a ton of difference, but it made enough of a difference to allow me to run 6 miles with 1-2-3-2-1 fartleks. I was able to increase my speed from the heat-induced 10:30/minute miles to below 9 minutes/mile during the intervals. It was nice to feel the wind in my hair again - haha, anybody who's seen me knows that's a joke. Anyway, I'm glad to back in that frame of mind. I'm thinking that I should do some hill repeats on Thursday to build up strength. That seems to be the advice for early in a training plan. Which I still need to put together, btw.

Today Plus One I Forgot

Let's backtrack for a moment - I ran Saturday morning, intending to do 8 miles but settling for 6. It wasn't that the temperature was so hot, but that the humidity was so stinking high. It was probably 78 degrees, but the humidity was 77%, and the sky was cloudless so the sun was shining nice and bright. My other (lame) excuse for stopping was that going 6 miles brought my total to 18 for the week, an increase of 8 miles over the week before. The extra couple of miles wouldn't have made that much difference over the long haul.

Plus this week I'm back to running four times a week. I expect the overall mileage to increase by another 8 miles. I know that goes against what the experts say ("increase your mileage by no more than 10% from week to week"). I think I can handle it, though, since I haven't been a complete and total couch potato lately. Just not at the top of my game. Today I would have run even if I wasn't a runner. The temperature was 73 degrees and the sky was overcast, plus there was a slight breeze from the northeast. That has to b e the lowest temperature I've run in since Spring. It was refreshing, and since this was an easy run I kept it slow. Tomorrow I'm hoping to try some speedwork again.

Still Warm

I'm back in the mode of really looking forward to running, a nice change from the laziness of the recent past. Even though it was 85 degrees today when I got home I knew that wasn't bad. It was even better than my Tuesday run. It's funny how things seem so different, relatively speaking. In May 85 degrees was unbearably hot coming out of winter and spring. Now it seems almost cool. I made a couple of mistakes, though. I forgot to put my water bottle in the freezer, and when I was about a mile from home I realized I'd forgotten to put a sports drink in to cool off as well.

So I adapted. I filled my hand-held water bottle with ice cubes and cold water. On my route out of the neighborhood there is some landscaping by the entrance and across from the pool. I knew if I ran the whole route with the bottle in my hands the shaking, jostling, and heat from being in the sun as well as in my hand while holding it would cause the ice to melt too quickly. I stowed it in the big rocks at the neighborhood entrance in the shade behind a bush. That gave me about 1.5 miles without it. Later when I was at about 3.5 miles I hid it in someone's bush by the sidewalk, giving it another ten minutes or so of rest. The ice melted, of course, but I know it lasted a lot longer this way. Next time I'll have to remember to get it in the freezer. In fact I'm going to do so right after I'm done posting this.

As far as sports drink goes, I went old-fashioned and poured it over ice in a tea glass. That worked. I've already put two more in the fridge, though.

Ruminations

This is the worst shape I've been in for several years. I fell off the exercise wagon, but not all the way, the past few months. I could go back and look to make sure, but I've been averaging about two runs a week for the past month, I'm sure. And my other exercise has been about the same or worse. I have several excuses, such as that until recently I'm not training for a specific race, it's been too hot, I've been on vacation, etc. The truth is I've been lazy, and my diet has not been good either. The "fun" is over, though, and it's time to get serious.

Earlier this year I was in the frame of mind to train to qualify for Boston, but at the moment that's fallen by the wayside. Right now I'm more of the mindset to try the Galloway run/walk method and see where that takes me. My original thought was that to get faster I need to train faster, but so many of those plans are very high mileage and I just don't have the desire to do that. That's why I'm leaning toward the run/walk for the Memphis Marathon. This weekend I bought Galloway's book about running and need to spend some studying it to make sure it's the right thing to do.

Today the temperature was 90 degrees when I left the house at 5 p.m., a tad bit cooler than the past month. When I arrived home 6 miles later, it was still 90 degrees. In fact, the heat index was three degrees higher after the run. I took my water bottle and went very slow, over 10:30/mile. It was torture at times to go so slow, but it definitely enabled me to complete the whole run. At about 4.4 miles I walked for four minutes up a hill and in the shade. Hey, I'm just trying to be smart about it. I don't know if we'll see 100 degree temperatures again this year or not, but I'm done using it as an excuse. It's time to get serious on the road to Memphis.

Wet

It just felt...well, wet outside on today's run. We'd gone to the farmer's market and stocked up on some good stuff. When we arrive home late morning it was still cloudy outside and about twenty degrees lower than it has been the past month or more. So I knew this was my big chance to get in a good run and I went for it. Since it had sprinkled on us on the way home I laced up the old pair I've been wearing and left the new shoes in the closet. Even though the temperature was "only" 84 degrees, I took it slow since the humidity was so high. I went 6 miles and still had to walk a couple of times. I blame that on not just the conditions outside, but also my laziness. It's time to really get back into a plan. And I mean it this time.

The Runs on Vacation

I'll admit that I didn't exert a whole lot of effort to run while on vacation. I like to sleep late and it was way too hot to run when I woke up, much less in the evening. I still managed to get in a few, although they were more along the line of guilt runs than anything else.

On Tuesday, July 20th, I ran in the morning before we took off for Tulsa. I think I ran 6 miles, but I'll have to check the Garmin to make sure. It was pretty warm, and I remember thinking it should be cooler than it was for that time of day. That was funny.

Didn't run again until we were in Texas. On Saturday, July 23rd, The Wife and my Virtual Running Partner hit the road for a 4-miler. It was nice and leisurely and mostly shade-free. We ran by some nice big homes in a new development on the outskirts of Frisco. We didn't push too hard and it was a good thing to get out.

We ran again on Monday or Tuesday morning (they all run together when you're on vacation), another 4-miler with the Virtual Running Partner. Again we took it easy and it was worth it.

The biggest running event of the vacation was when we hit the mall to look for clothing for the Virtual Running Partner's Wife's birthday and I found a sale at Nordstrom on Asics. They had the new Gel Nimbus for $89.99 instead of $129.99, and yes, I immediately bought a pair. To find the new model at that price was a miracle. I was pretty pumped and I wore them for the first time tonight on the treadmill. It was 6 miles without hitting the pavement, but I figured it was a good break-in for them. Finding a good pair of running shoes on sale was like Christmas in July.