Friday 30JUN2017

AM – 5.2 miles with Greg and the team down to Josh’s Pond and back.  I did a half dozen grass strides when we returned.

My nose is running like a hydrant.  I am definitely dealing with some sort of cold or nasal infection or something that has come on via a combination of travel (out of my element, in a tube in the sky,effed up sleep) and a bit more running (I did 42 miles M-W).  I was blowing my nose and sneezing like I had been inhaling cayenne powder nearly all the way home.  I am sure this made the already pissed folks on our flight more pissed (our flight was about 4 hours late in landing due to various delays).  Today, I am fairly sure I am running a low grade fever.

I had no juice on the AM run but again, getting out and doing it always makes me feel better than not. 

Afternoon  - 7.1 (typical loop for that, CCW) and even though I was snotting up a storm and sweating from the fever, it went fairly well.

June – 327.8 miles, 44.55 hours, 13130 feet
Year – 1883.8 miles, 253.55 hours, 82130 feet
Other stuff – averaging 9.86 hours a week, 73.26 miles a week, 6 run days off on the year, 20 business travel nights, and 5 camping nights on the year.  10.47 miles average a day but 10.83 on the days actually run, averaging 7.43 mph.  Travel is at 11% on the year.  3 races run (a mile, a 1500 and a burro race)

Thursday 29JUN2017

AM – ugh. Tired and I have a swollen throat as if I am getting some sort of cold.  Slow to rise but I got out and mucked through a half dozen.  I felt better after I got it in than before I started, but it was a bit of a chore.  I travel back to CO today.

Wednesday 28JUN2017

AM – more river path and bridge exploring (there are a lot of options here).

I had one of those conversations today … one of those where I was talking to someone about the area, the city, etc.  The CMU campus is up on an area called Squirrel Hill and I was commenting how that I had found that area to be significantly different than the Fifth Avenue area leading back into town.  “You were up on Squirrel Hill?  And then you came back on Fifth?  When?”  Well, last night.  “How did you get there?”  Along the Three Rivers Trail.  “What?  You didn’t drive there?  That is pretty far away?”  No I ran, its only about 3 or 4 miles from here. 

And then you get that sort of stunned look.  That look that you sort of enjoy because they are looking at you like you just climbed Everest or something completely unfathomable to them but is sort of routine and embarrassingly not worth mentioning (except on a blog) to your fellow runner friends. 

“You ran back through XXX (some neighborhood I can’t recall)?!” implying that is pretty unsafe and stupid to do that.  Uh, yeah, it was only a few minutes getting through that.  There is a nice church down there but some of those houses are in pretty bad shape.

More stunned stares. 

Ah well.

You should listen to this edition of the Jocko Podcast.

Evening – after dinner and had to handle a call, but got in another 4 or so.

Tuesday 27JUN2017

AM – tired as expected with the travel and time change.  8.1 miles trying to explore more of the south shore this time. 

Evening – 8.4 miles, heading east over to CMU, Pitt U and Schenley Park.

En route back I was definitely running through some neighborhoods where I was a bit out of place.  And certainly some run down places that I have come to learn are as much a part of a city as are the nice downtowns areas and parks.  I didn’t stop for pix in these spots though.

Tuesday 11JUL2017

AM – tired and stiff.  I really could not get going for a bit this AM.  6.3, slower to start which just progressed to slow.  Interesting was that while it was cooler,  it seemed I ended up sweating more because the sun was not up high to burn it off …

In today’s take of “holy crap you are getting slow GZ” there is the guy who just race walked a 5:30 mile.

Monday 26JUN2017

Traveled into Pittsburgh for work for a few days.  I got a run in the evening along the rivers.





13.1 miles, and being on flat seemed to keep the pace fairly honest for me.

Weekend 24-25JUN2017

Saturday mid day – a sloppy 10.2 miles with it getting warm again.

Listened to a good ATC with Lucho and guest host Annie.

Sunday AM – jogged down into the open space and then met Bob as he came from the north.  Worked on a half dozen of the “shad hills.”  It is about a 1/3 of a mile up a 6 or so percent grade.  I managed to look at Bob’s back on each of them but I got some hard breathing in, and found a way to get each one a bit progressively faster – starting at 2:05 and cutting down to 1:53 on the last.  11.5 miles.

The week ended up being 75.8 miles.  I am at 267.4 on June over 36. hours and a flat month at 11k and change vertical feet.  On the year, I am at 1823.4 miles, 245.8 hours and 80,265 feet, six days off.  Averages are at 9.83 hours a week, 72.94 miles a week.  17 travel nights, 5 camp nights.

The week was good in that I turned the corner on the hamstring and some of the basic energy issues I have been having.  I definitely need to get to the habit of pushing pace a bit like I did today a couple of times a week. 

All good.  Fun weekend doing various Scout related things:

Friday 23JUN2017

AM – 4.2 miles post some nice rain.

PM – 7.6 miles.  Poked over 1800 miles for the year with this run.  Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters was rolling in my ears so I got on a pretty good run … I’d even call it a Fartlek.

Thursday 22JUN2017 Burro Racing 2017 just upped the ante

Interesting video on Walmsley.

Good read from Kevin.
==================================================================
So I am getting word that this challenge that I put forth in 2015 may come to fruition this year:

Wednesday 21JUN2017

AM – 3 miles with the team before heading into a day of calls.

PM – 6.5 miles, a few miles over to Nighthawk to meet Neeraj and his family.  I yapped with him a bit and then jogged home.

Tuesday 20JUN2017

AM – 6.1 miles with the team.  Rather than float slow, I did look to keep the pace a bit more honest today. 

Been getting in fair weight room work as well post these runs.

Evening – great night time show on the Solstice:

Monday 19JUN2017

AM – 7.6 miles with TZ and then the coaches.

PM  - 4 miles along the ditch.  I actually broke out of my 8 min/mile plus shuffle and moved a little bit.

Glad to see Lucho blogging on training again.

Weekend 17-18JUN2017

Saturday AM  - 10.2 miles in Carolyn Holmberg and to the north.

Sunday AM – 12 miles.

72 miles and change on the week, again no speed other than the one mile race for the week.  The hammy is not happy, but I am running through on it.  That probably ain’t smart but I am not going to just take time off this time of year – it is too nice not to run.

I sense the hammy is turning a corner – and I am hoping my energy levels do as well.  I have been feeling pretty knackered as of late (just physically) so that I can edge in some harder runs and maybe some longer stuff as well. 

Thursday 15JUN2017 BRR Meet #2

More fun at the BRR track meet.  JZ jumped in the steeple – an event he has talked about doing for a couple of years (since he saw me do it).  The officials lost count of the laps and he ended up doing an extra one (3400 meters).  All fun, and he is still figuring out the event. 

I did the mile.  Even in the warm up I was questioning if I should do it because the left hammy was clearly not happy.  A few accelerations on it as a part of the warm up really left me questioning if racing was the smart thing, but as it held without yelping, I decided I line up.  82 (for 409), 2:44, 4:06, 5:30.  I felt like I was running on one leg most of the time. 

This effort was different than the one a few weeks ago where I felt gassed from 400 meters in.  I think that is because of the more conservative start but I like to think there is a bit of fitness / race familiarity there as well.  I ended up sitting behind this guy a 400 meters and was almost feeling like I was cutting and slowing my pace a bit to sit there.  That was true until he started to accelerate away a bit and then there was nothing else there for me to do.  I got caught by two young women outkicking me in the last 100. 

Given I have done not a single bit of specific work to move my fitness since doing the last race, I am not surprised that I ran the same or maybe a hair slower.  Getting this hammy right and doing some correct work will move things a bit.

10.2 miles on the day.

Wednesday 14JUN2017

Guess who came home today?

10.1 miles in the AM around XC practice.

Tuesday 13JUN2017

AM – 10.1 miles around XC practice.

Monday 12JUN2017

First day of XC practice for 2017:

AM – 3.1 miles, PM – 5 miles.  Easy both times.  Tired.

Sunday 11JUN2017

AM – 10.2 with Bob, catching up on recent burro racing affairs, upcoming trips and race plans, and some more snake encounters.

The week:  I was nursing a hammy issue that kept me from pressing any efforts this week, but I managed in fourteen runs.  Yup, a double a day to get some miles.  It was a lot of easy shorter runs.  This landed me at 82 miles.  It was probably not the quickest way to rehab the hammy, but it kept me doing some running. 

I’ll probably take a crack at the mile at the summer BRR all comers track series later this coming week, but I may switch it up for the 5k instead.  Both distances (no I won’t double) sound like efforts to reveal an overall lack of performance fitness, but I take some sort of odd enjoyment in that. 

Saturday 10JUN2017

AM – 8.1 miles through the open space

Evening – 4.6.  It was probably the hottest day all year so far.  Denver supposedly hit 100.

Mid day JZ and I went over to the fire station for the Flag Day retirement ceremony.

Friday 09JUN2017

Painful for me to listen to given my stuttering and “umms” and “you knows” but I’d be interested in any feedback (positive, negative, constructive) on the podcast I did with Lucho.  It runs a bit long given the introductions we do but the time buzzed by for me as I yapped with Tim.  We could have cruised yapping for another 2 hours easy.  Also feel free to fire any questions at me that could be served up on the ‘cast (if we do another one).

AM – headed into Boulder with Greg to get some kids to get a workout in.  5 miles.

Evening – 5.6 miles.

Thursday 08JUN2017

AM – 3 miles easy.  I did one stride at a slightly faster pace and I was quickly warned about the hammy thing.  While it has subsided to some quieter levels, it is still an issue at quicker paces, and assumedly longer efforts.

PM – I was up in Summit County for some business, so I snuck in a run along the rec path on the res.  8.2 miles.

Definitely was recalling altitude up in Summit.  Ugh. 

Wednesday 07JUN2017

AM – 7 miles, some with Greg.  Saw a beautiful hawk.

My left hammy is still pretty tender.  I’d probably do better to take a few days off to let it mend up but we all know that is unlikely to happen.  Running has been slow and easy on it in light of this. 

PM – just draggin.  I am feeling pretty beat down, even without the hammy in the mix but that does not help.  Could be the heat, could be poor sleep, could be something else … but press on … 5 miles. 

Oh, a funny sort of cool thing …as I was running through the park another shirtless old guy was running in the opposite direction.  I gave him a wave and he interpreted it as a high five.  Dude nearly knocked my hand off.

Tuesday 07JUN2017

I started playing with a bad idea today.  Given Beck’s recent post on conversion calculators, I started looking at an age group calculator.

I have never been – and still am not – a fan of age calculator awarding.  That is where a race gets reshuffled based on the age group scoring that a person puts up rather than the actual performance in terms of time.  I recall seeing this back at the USATF XC champs in NY in 2006 and scoffing at it.  A then masters said, “you’ll change your mind when you are old.”  His statement may of cemented the fact that I most certainly have not changed my mind.

While I am not in favor of race scoring based on these sort of things, I am mildly interested in what a performance at the age of 47 translates into at my best.  It gives me a bit of an arbitrary consideration of how my performance decline actually stacks up.  In other words, based on the calculator, am I about the same athlete that I used to be, have I got worse over the years or am I fighting age slightly better?

A 5:06 1500 ends up as a 76.61 performance (or what grades to a 4:29).  My best was 4:13, and I am thinking that was about 15 years ago.  That is a 81.42 score.  Mildly interesting because in addition to getting slower, I have slipped on the scales … which might be reflective of slipping up  on the scales.

In any case – work to be done.

AM – 5.5 miles, including watching some kids do some post season mile prep work with GW.

PM – 7.2, including a few with GW and EG from GW’s place.

Monday 05JUN2017

So my left hammy is a bit tender, up in the connection to the butt.  It sort of yelped a touch out of the 1500 last week (results from that first summer meet are up). I think I may have aggravated it between walking 4000 miles at the campout and doing my run at the St. Vrain.

AM – 4 miles easy.  PM – 4 miles easy.

Webelos Weekend 03-04JUN2017

On Friday JZ and I headed up to the Tahosa Scout Camp.  Our troop would be hosting the knot station for younger Scouts (Webelos, 3rd and 4th graders essentially).  Tahosa is just outside of Ward, and it is really a beautiful mountain location.

JZ has been coming to this since at least 2011, maybe even farther back than that – I’d have to check. 

I slipped out on Saturday for a slow run up the Saint Vrain trail.  Its trail head runs pretty much right into the camp.  I ended up going further on the trail than I have ever before, even passing the Sourdough intersection.  Once I got past this, the snow mounds became bothersome so I turned back.

We got back home on Sunday.  I am always a bit toasted out from these campouts but I thought I’d get in 11 for the requisite 70 miles.  The upper 80 temps fried me pretty good on top of already being fried.  I thought I’d get out later in the evening, but I knew I was just doing junk for this silly goal – and so I let it go.  The camping, a race day set me at 66 on the week.  I felt sort of wimpy for not getting out for the other four but at the same time I knewi it was time to break this silly streak rather than be addicted to it.

Friday 02JUN2017

AM – 6.9, with a handful with Greg.  Saw a coyote.

Later AM – 7.1.  Ugh.  Heavy legs from the racing.

Back to the track Thursday 01JUN2017

I knew that a 1500 meter race would be a less than wonderful affair for me.  While I have been getting in decent mileage, my embracing of work that brings me discomfort has been inadequate:  as in I don’t do it. 

But I also knew that I had to do something like this – something to force me out of my comfort zone and to break the ice.  To not would just allow me to continue to dance with excuses and make up stories as what sort of fitness I thought I was in versus what I actually was in.

2 miles and a couple of strides to warm up.  Conditions were about perfect.  Conditioning was not.  There was a heat for sub 5:20 runners (for 1500) so I went into that.  The gun went and I was out the back real quick.  Lucho photo.

I came around in 78 but was way back.  I knew it was too fast for the shape I was in.  By 600, I was pretty well awash with thoughts of “okay you still have a long way to go.”  Lucho photo

Lap 2 was 2:38, so an 80 split.  I was surprised that it was actually only an 80 because I felt like I was running in a sand dune.  I could start to see that a group of ahead of me was starting to splinter and perhaps I’d have a shot at catching one of those runners if they faltered.  Lap 3 was 4:02 – or an 84.  Ugh.  Todd Straka shots.

5:06, meaning a 64 for the last 300, or about another 84. 

Well, a baseline and something to work from.  I was hacking like a 2 pack a day smoker for a good amount post it all.

JZ did the 400 a little later.  It was nice for him to do an off event.  Lucho was also in this.

Lucho also did the 100. 

It was a fun night, getting out with JZ, seeing Lucho, getting in some jogging with Bob, yapping with Shad, and seeing a lot of faces from the BRR that I have not seen in a while.  Ran into Kevin B as well, so I got to meet him in person versus just through the interwebs.  

Lucho and I joked that the track is a lot bigger than it used to be.  Clocks seem to run faster than they used to as well.  I lodged an informal complaint but I only heard empathetic snorts back.