Wednesday, August 30, 2006

You're An Explosion (You're Dynamite)

August 30

10mi, Como Relays: 5xMile in 5:04, 4:57, 4:59, 5:07, 5:05. Good, tough workout. Teamed with Biz for 2nd overall against Lindahl and Weltham (sp? Biz?). Lots of one-on-one racing with Weltham made for a good mental workout. Lactic acid in forearms after second interval - I was happier with no mind set. Sidecars are for bitches.

Gold Teeth And A Curse For This Town

August 30

3, Untimed: Isles with Jessica, dancing like the king of the eyesores. God speed all the bakers at dawn/may they all cut their thumbs. Hmmmm...

August 29

11, 1:15:25 (6:51/mi): The Vanishing Fat Man. Up the west bank, most of the way with Arneson. Looking for Biz, who made it undetected down the west bank. SCRC reunion, way better than WRRT reunion. Then some more running and some Annie's once Biz got back from my place.

Monday, August 28, 2006

And The Seagulls They'll Be Smiling

August 28

11.5mi, 1:17:27 (6:44/mi): OOOOUUU-LUUUUU! Or at least that's what this run should be called. Senner, Buce and BD can weigh-in. Ran on Pre's Trails before adding on over to Hayward for a mile on the track. Evidently we ran past or close to some osprey nests without any mention being made. But it's hard to know what to expect from a man who allows the word "seagull" to be sung at his wedding...

August 27

PM: 4mi, 26:36 (6:39/mi): Where's Macarthur Court (Or Hayward Field...)? Yeah. Shakeout run in Eugene after the drive from Seattle. Lost, but giddy, and in typical fashion failed to find the enormous, legendary track located directly across the street from our hotel a quarter-mile away. Problem seems to be that I turned left.

AM: 10mi, 1:07:28 (6:45/mi): Greenlake. Ran the first mile with Paul before he decided it was a waste of his time to train with someone as slow as me and wisely climbed back into bed with Katie.


Week: 74mi. More or less as planned, with two solid workouts but without a real long run. Instead, not only did I watch Senner get married, I watched Lande christen a new Eugene monument with his car not 200m from Pre's Rock.

August 26

8mi, 55:25 (6:56/mi): The Tops. Good easy run with PDA around Greenlake, over some trails and through the UW campus fueled by late night burgers and shakes. Name is pending final approval from PDA himself.

Friday, August 25, 2006

La-de-da, de-da, de-da

August 25

8mi, 53:43 (6:43/mi): LS8. Easy run but legs heavy. Now begins whirlwind tour of Pacific Northwest, for Pauls, weddings and runing...

Thursday, August 24, 2006

On a Night Like This

August 24

10mi, 1:07:08 (6:43/mi): Run Rabbit. Good run on a rainy, tornadoey night. Nondescript until the downpour.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Rainy Day

August 23

PM: 9mi, Como Relays: 4xMile. 5:30, 5:26, 5:21, 5:14. Perfect threshold workout. Felt smooth and controlled the whole way and was never close to pushing into lactate. Makes it tempting to go for It next week...which is a dangerous thought...

AM: 4mi, Untimed: Shortcut. More easy recovery. Very, very slow but good to get out the door and shake some of the crap out of my legs and stomach...

August 22

7mi, 49:08 (7:01/mi): LS8. Stumbling around, but at least I could move, which is more than was possible in the morning. Legs very stiff post workout. Wonder if this is what the Red Sox feel like...

Monday, August 21, 2006

So Kiss Me Goodbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeee!

August 21

13.5mi, 1:30ish (wkout): 10xHill. 2:39, :36, :38, :41, :32, :42, :36, :31, :30, :23. Felt awful and unfocused the whole way. After the fourth I was planning to cut the workout to six, but I foolishly raced a bike on the fifth and got myself feeling worse than I already did. So my punishment from Coach Myself was partially re-extending the workout to eight. Then on the sixth I felt the effects of foolishly racing the bike, and Coach Myself made me do the full workout. Very frustrated with the absence of focus and consistency during the first half of the workout, but also very happy with the way I finished. One of my best "feeling bad" workouts since college, and since those are more important than the "feeling good" workouts, I'll come away from this feeling positive.

August 20

12mi, 1:20:40 (6:43/mi): Ford-Washington. Easy run with Hools and Biz. Not 13mi. Legs felt remarkably good, possibly because of the six mile cool-down yesterday, but more likely because of Samuel L. Jackson.

Week: 54mi. Mileage took a hit this week because I wanted to recover for the race, so I'm glad it paid off. Volume will go up this week, maybe to eleven. And I'll be doing one million quality miles, but I don't talk about those on the blog for reasons that I can't talk about on the blog. First rule of quality miles...

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Enter the Wu

August 19

14.5mi, bedar, (BEDAR!): Guidant 10K in 32:19. PR!!!! Ya know what, I'll go ahead and say it: This was a great race. Fantastic weather and rocketship course. Went out more aggressively than I'd planned, but it got me into a solid pack so I didn't end up in no-man's land. 5:06, 5:11, 5:12, 5:06, 5:19, 5:20. A little frustrated for letting myself lose contact with the group after 4mi, but no complaints about a PR. Also a great way to cap the team circuit, with PRs from BD and Schrades as well. Time to turn my attention towards November. Now, about those SNAKES...

Friday, August 18, 2006

This Time, Baby, I Won't Turn Around

August 18

3mi, 20:05, (whatever that comes to): Riley Run. Easy pre-meet. Also did some accells. Legs feel ok but sort of ominous. I'll need to do some more stretching later today, but mostly I'll be doing as much sitting as possible in preparation for Guidant. Mis-stated the Stats For Schrades, because I ignored the 87mi week I had with HDLN back in May. That was a little like being at camp, however, and I wasn't racing so much etc etc etc. So, yet another exception. And for those wondering (nobody), I didn't physically run yesterday, but I did speak with Schof for a while, which counts under the Speaking To Schofer exception. We'll call it an easy 8mi chatting with Schof online: "I heard you're using galvanized nails for that deck." "Yeah, it's pretty legit."

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Weenie.

August 17

Day Off. Stats For Schrades: 50mi in 4 days to close last week is my highest four-day total since 7/26/05-7/29/05 (52.5mi). Last summer I had a day off (in Madison, no less) right after that stretch and temporarily quit running the following week.

August 16

6.5mi, time. 3x1600 at Como w/Jessica. 5:08, 5:18, 5:28. The good news is that I think I could have continued this pattern for a long while. Ran the first one leading with Williamson. Purposely slowed down on the second, but wasn't feeling great and was running all alone. Dead legs on the third and I shut things down over the second half. Frustrating, but it'll pass. Mostly I'm just a weenie. I even shivered my way through an ice bath after...

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I Just Wanted To Borrow Your Dustbuster

August 15

7mi, 46:10 (6:38/mi): LS8. I think it's safe to say that if your legs feel good during a training run in August you must be doing something wrong. Listen to the bell, Grossbard, it tolls for thee!

"Is 'Masterstroke' One Word?"

August 14

AM: 4mi, 29:14 (7:17/mi): Shortcut. Legs felt absolutely useless, but the run was slow enough that it didn't matter. And it was completed around 7:40am.

PM: 7mi, 49:43 (7:06/mi): Isles and Calhoun. Legs still felt terrible, but had the pleasure of running with a certain Christoph Ibele so it was easy to forget about the fact that my legs don't work. Learned, among other things, the virtues of running counter-clockwise around Calhoun so as to ensure a smooth finish back to Isles. Also got Christoph to accept roughly half of the blame for the whole Senner-Kate debacle...

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Either Way...

August 13

14mi, "race": MN Masters 15K in 53:09. Very poor race, but I a) wasn't nearly recovered for racing and b) was about due for something like this. Went out slow with the goods and...well I beat Coffey. Another good showing for SCRC, however, on the strength of solid races from Bizyah and BD. Time to recover for Guidant...brarkfast is a good start.

Week: 66mi. Of course, only 14 of them count under the rules I made-up for running early. So, we'll say that Monday and Tuesday count under the Running Up North exception, Thursday counts under the August Track Workout* exception, Friday counts under the Day After a Track Workout exception and Saturday counts under the Running With BD exception. Damn it.

*The theory being that if you're doing a track workout in August, you can do it whenever you want since later in the day should be hotter and more miserable. Thursday was windy, but otherwise plesant. Just shutup all of you.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

It Takes More Than A Magazine To Kill My Vibe

August 12

10mi, hmmm. Como Loop with BD plus 2ish with Boulder Followed by Bryan's Fantastic Waffles. Legs feel very heavy, which is odd since according to my new nothing-after-9:30am-counts system, I've run zero miles this week...maybe time for a new system. Or new legs.

August 11

12mi, 1:20:18 (6:42/mi): Hennepin-Lake + xtra. I knew it was 12mi because it took me 80min. When I finished the initial loop I was at something like 78min, so I knew it couldn't be 12mi. Because 12mi takes 80min.

Friday, August 11, 2006

So Easy I Forgot To Laugh

August 10

14mi, 1:32:32 (something like that): 2x3200m@T, 1mi recovery on UofM track. 10:44 (:26/:18), 10:43(:25/:18). Very windy and Hennepin-Lake still in my legs, so decided against a third in favor of a longer cool down. Felt smooth despite the wind. Effort was probably just greater than threshold, but pretty close. Need to keep upper body from deteriorating at some point...

August 9

Day Off. SCRC was fourth at HLC on Sunday, ahead of both Gear and Collegeville. With two races to go we are fifth overall, three points behind fourth-place Gear and three points ahead of sixth-place Collegeville. And since the top two places are basically never going to be contested, we're basically third and challenging for second. Lundgren Ford, we'll get you next year.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Where I Get My Killing Done

August 8

6+, 43:23, (7ish/mi): Jay Cooke State Park. Breathtaking run. Life is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Leapt over roots and rocks and dangled me footsies in the river. Wrote bad poetry and developed an inexplicably stubborn craving for Culver's...which was worth it despite the fact that the closest location turned out to be Forest Lake instead of Hinckley or something further north.

August 7

10mi, 1:06:31 (6:33/mi): Out 'n' Back along Lake Superior. Legs fatigued from racing and standing all day for work, but picked it up on the way back and felt good running fast in Duluth for the first time ever.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

This, That and This and uh

August 6

14.5mi, Hennepin-Lake Doubleheader: 10K - 33:14 (10th place), 5K - 16:15 (14th place) Doubleheader - 49:29 (4th place). Pretty good racing, especially given the humidity during the 10K. Thanks to Hools for pulling me around Calhoun for 6mi, for trading rhymes with me and Biz after 2mi, and for making me kick. Would not have felt as good about the 10K if I hadn't been able to come back with a negative split 5K (5:22, 5:15, 5:10, 33s). Waiting for results, but should be another good team day for SCRC.

Week: 68.5mi. Viva August!

Saturday, August 05, 2006

THIS IS NOT A RACE!

August 5

10mi, 1:06:20 (6:38/mi): Run Rabbit. Um, yeah.

Church: So, Biz was sorta chastizing me for treating today's run as a pre-meet...

Hooley: Yeah, I was sorta chastizing you in my head a little bit.

Church: ...

Friday, August 04, 2006

Wish I Was The Moon...

August 4

AM: 3mi, 21:22, (7:07/mi): Neighborhood. Slow. Pre-T shake-out.

PM: 7mi, 48:51, (6:59/mi): LS8. This falls under the "I had a test" exception. Felt like crap. Maybe it shouldn't count...

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Where'd You Go?

August 3

0mi, 51:54 (0:00/mi): LS8 + xtra. Finished just before 7pm. Time to get back on the horse. Someone remind me to register for HLC...

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Happy Birthday and Godspeed!

August 2

AM: 5mi, 32:33 (6:31/mi): Ok, maybe not quite 5, but close enough...and almost 50 degrees cooler than Monday's high...

PM: 7mi, Como Relays. 4x1000m. 3:15, 3:14, 3:14, 3:12. Felt decent running hope-this-can-be-10K-pace over soft, uneven, not-River-Road, terrain. Happy Birthday and safe travels to founding partner, Phil Schrader, as he heads out of the country for the next three weeks.

C'mon Now Who Do You. Who Do You Who Do You Who Do You Think You Are?

August 1

PM: 4mi, 27:56 (6:59/mi): Blockbuster + xtra. Rented V for Vendetta and got all confused. Was that a mask?

AM: 10mi, 1:06:48 (6:41/mi): Lakes Run with impromptu workout around Calhoun and Harriet. 6x(3min on/3min off). Not real difficult but good to get some life in the legs. Cooler but still humid...

July 31

Day Off. Il fait tres chaud.