Second Wind

Rest.

Time for the weekday miles to take another step up.  After the cut back week last week things start to get serious again with the training.  Did several sessions on the inversion table over the weekend and took my last dose of IB last night with dinner.  The back is not 100% yet but it is feeling better.  No verdict yet on the inversion therapy.  I imagine it will take a couple of weeks for me to decide if it's working or not.  Another hot day today but not as humid as it was over the weekend.  Starting temp this morning was 88 with out much of a breeze at all.  The weekly mileage goes through the roof for the next 7 weeks until the taper, I hope my body holds together during this time.

Time:  1:13:26  8:10/mile

Another hot one today with a nice warm breeze to go along with 88 degree temps.  Started out easy for the first mile and slowly worked in to a 8:00ish pace.  Lower back is still an issue but really does seem to warm up and ease by about mile 4-5.  Passed Meg and Michael once during the run.  Michael is struggling with shin splints right now, the worst thing about starting runners.  It took me about a year to get past the shin splints and I have never looked back since.  I hope he sticks with it long enough to get past this initial pain without pushing it too far.  Nothing else exciting today just the uneventful 9, the usual 15 minutes of yoga and 5 minutes inverted while watching the opening segment of the today show wondering why our president has such a hard time appologizing for the stupid things he says....I guess you just can't teach humility.

Time:  1:12:41  8:05/mile

Tough workout today.  Did a fairly easy warm up of three miles at 8:15/mile and then set-up the Garmin for 1 mile intervals with half mile rests.  Plan called for 3x1 mile intervals at 6:26/mile pace.  Here are the splits:  6:25, 4:16, 6:23, 4:14, 6:20, 4:13.  In all fairness I had a couple of minutes of extra rest before that last interval because I hit the lap button on my gamin by accident and had to do some messing around to get it back to interval mode for the last interval.  One thing I noticed is that I do pretty good with each of the intervals until I get to the last quarter mile or so at which point my breathing changes to a much faster rhythm and I really start to struggle.  I try to stay relaxed as best I can but the breathing is hard to control.  The legs really started to get fatigued by the end of the 2nd  interval and I was wishing I only had to do two.  The back was no better or worse today but it did seem to feel better, or wasn't as noticable, during the faster miles.

Time:  1:00:52  7:36/mile

Power went out at the house last night from about 11:30 to 2:00 a.m. so I didn't get much sleep cause when the power is out the house is silent and you hear every little sound.  Plus when the power is out in the desert the inside of the house gets really warm.  Surprisingly I was able to get up at my regular time and get out the door.  Legs were a little weak from yesterdays tough run but for the most part they felt okay.  The lower back issue was a little worse today, probably due to yesterdays fast miles, but I was able to run through it as it seems to warm up with miles.  Kept the first 8 miles at the regular moderate pace and then picked it up to just faster than BQ pace for the last mile, felt pretty good.

Time:  1:12:12  8:01/mile

Nice and easy today.  Slept a little extra and took the usual easy day on Friday.  Nothing exciting today, just easy miles and slightly cooler temps.  Today caps off my highest mileage month ever but only by .9 miles.   I had my previous high mileage month in November last year preping for Las Vegas.  Feel pretty good about the month except for this last week of nagging back ache.  Hopefully things will improve on that front and I can continue to get in some good training.

Time:  0:42:02  8:24/mile

Good tough long run today.  The goal today was to run the first 10 miles at a pace that was moderately hard to put some fatigue on the legs but not blow-up and then pick it up for the last 6 miles to BQ pace.  Everything worked out better than expected.  Even the weather cooperated today giving us 83 degrees and a breeze so light that the trees didn't move but just enough that you could feel the benefit.  With the last week of back problems I was worried this run might not go well but the back also felt "okay" today so I was good to go.  Here are the paces for the first 10 miles:  8:00, 7:51, 8:00, 7:53, 7:55, 7:52, 7:56, 7:53, 7:44, 7:47.  Those last two miles came in under my 7:50 threshhold for fast miles that is why I show 8 fast miles today.  I was just getting anxious during those miles to really let it go.  Here are the splits for the last 6 miles:  7:20, 7:21, 7:17, 7:20, 7:11, 7:18.  I started to feel a little bit of fatigue kick in for the last couple of miles but was really able to focus and maintain the pace.  I contemplated turning this run into a 20 miler because of all the favorable factors mentioned above but decided to be satisfied with meeting my goals for the day and save the 20 for next week.  Hopefully it all comes together again next week for the big nasty. 

Interesting side note:  I decided on Friday night that I wanted to do this type of run so my mind was into it when I woke up today.  I think preping mentally in advance gives you a huge psycological advantage in training, I know that's how it works with races.

Welcome to the Monster Month of training for SGM.

Time:  2:02:47  7:40/mile