Sand Storm Alternatives

Monday- 0 miles (1st day off in 25 days)
Tuesday- 8 miles- 2 warm up, 6 at 6:49 pace, workout cut off! freaking treadmill!

Well, tons in the news lately..... good and bad. The Vtech tragedy just sucks the happiness out of you, and overshadows the good though. Great competitions this weekend: BRR 50, AR 50, McN-100, Boston marathon... Glad to see former Montrail runner Scott Wolfe running well placing 2nd at AR 50 in 6:29. Scott and I raced one another in junior college in 1994! Crazy stuff that, then in 2001 he was in VA doing a lot of ultras and ran for Montrail. Last I had heard he was in PT school at UNC. Now I hear he lives in the PNW.
At McN-100 Karl Meltzer won and set another 100 miler course record. Kudos. And at Boston glad to see Uli Steidl run 2:19 nabbing a 12th overall finishing place. Crazy speed in his ultrarunner legs!

As for me, I took yesterday off (a beautiful weather day too) because I was really excited about "watching" the Boston marathon on line by reading the updates. I followed it on letsrun.com, runersworld, chasing kimba, WBZ radio, the BAA homepage and had 4 of the 5 sites crash out!!!!!!! Letsrun ruled once again. what a great site by two nice guys who ran at Yale with my old teamate PLOW's old highschool teammate somewhere in Connecticut.... if I have the story right. Anyway.... I opted NOT to run as the race was going on during my 5pm-8pm window when I normally run after work.

So tonight I wanted (needed) to get in a hard run and wanted to do a threshold run like 3x 2 miles after a 10 mile warm up. But this huge sandstorm blew in with 40mph winds and oven like 100+ heat and, well, sand. You can't run in it... the sand is literally like a white-out snow storm. Visibility was 200m tops. So I got on the treadmill....which has been finicky. It will go for an hour at a reasonable pace then goes into auto-shut off and won't come back to life for like an hour. So my planned indoor workout of 10-12 miles at marathon pace got trashed. I did 2 miles in 16min to warm up, then 6 at my new marathon pace of 6:49 (as it has been 5 weeks and I am guessing I have moved up one VDOT level on the Jack Daniels tables), but then the machine shut off and wouldn't restart... I gave up. ticked me off as I felt really good. Huge difference doing marathon pace stuff fresh v. after a hour of running or a 10mile warm up. oh well sucko

Staying On That Horse

Thurs: 6 miles- 50min with 8 x striders of 80-300m
Friday- 16miles- 2:00 - 60min at 8:00, 60min at 7:00 pace

Ugh! Let me tell you runs like today are interesting. I feel simultaneously happy and sad. Happy that I continue to tough out sensible (but TOUGH) workouts that are going to make me faster, stronger, and a better runner. But also sad because that 2nd hour of running on the treadmill today was tough. And it is hard for me mentally to think that an hour at 7:00 mile pace can be that difficult. Am I not the guy that could run 20 miles at 6:05 pace?.......yes, I am, but that WAS 10 years ago. Damn! Aging and slowing is hard to accept sometimes.

Going back to the positive:
Yesterday's run... I really felt fast. First time in a long long time that I can honestly say that. Now I have no track here and no real way of measuring my speed. I'm sure I am not breaking 30 sec for 200m, but I am now running smoothly, fluidly, and with a feeling of control. It has only been two months since I really started any speedwork so I am very encouraged. The striders did NOT feel like this a month ago.

Today"s Run: Now it might have only been 16 miles in 2 hours, but I did run the last hour at 7 min pace (my calculated marathon pace at my current fitness level)...and although my mind still remembers 10 years ago when I pretty much never ran SLOWER than 7 min miles... it is still 7 min miles. Three Months ago I could not have done today's workout. And looking ahead, if I keep banging out runs like this one, the improvement curve will have to continue to slope upwards. Now I am not deluding myself thinking that come July I'll be cracking 16 min 5k's and running tempo runs under 6min mile pace again. But, I should be a heck of a lot closer to that than I am today.

I just like the way I am feeling and the direction I am heading.

Hey good luck shout out to all those running in two of the biggest and best 50 milers tomorrow: the Bull Run Run in my beloved VA, and the American River 50 in CA.